


one long play of this same song

by lol-phan-af (sunflowersocialist), sunflowersocialist



Series: beyond rhyme and reason [3]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Birthday, Coming Out, Dirty Talk, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Finger Sucking, Fluff, Holidays, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Losers Club (IT) Friendship, M/M, Masturbation, Mild Gore, Multi, Nightmares, Non-Graphic Violence, Oral Sex, Possessive Sex, Reconciliation, Recreational Drug Use, Richie Tozier Has a Big Dick, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Romantic Gestures, Sappy Ending, Slice of Life, Slurs, Vomit Mention, Voyeurism, blood mention, in like a consensual way they're just horny for each other, it's consensual and brief but still there, r+e, somnophilia mention, two of them but they are still there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:27:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 144,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25662088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowersocialist/pseuds/lol-phan-af, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowersocialist/pseuds/sunflowersocialist
Summary: To realize he'd only spent three months knowing Richie loved him back, was the kind of unspoken reality that knocked Eddie backwards, as he sat back on his heels.He knew why it felt like so long. The last time Eddie didn't care about Richie, he was five years old, and didn't even know there was a Richie to care about. Since the moment they met, Eddie loved him, and he would until he fucking died. He couldn't remember what it felt like to not love him, and the reminder that he'd only been putting all that affection into practice for less than four fucking months. He needed a minute.Still processing, he took a deep breath. "Are you gonna let me suck your dick or not?"*A reddie-centric year in the life fic about the Losers' freshman year in college, and all of the emotional pitfalls and high points that come with being dumb and gay with more love for your friends than should be possible
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris
Series: beyond rhyme and reason [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1662811
Comments: 66
Kudos: 71





	1. you just wanna say you're mine

In terms of how Eddie's life was going, as compared to the past almost-eighteen years he'd spent on the earth so far, he was on top of the fucking world. Richie drove past the sign telling them they'd left Derry, and every second since was a learning experience on how to grow outside of that town, knowing he would never have to live there again. A whole new person had developed inside Eddie, melding more securely into his friendships and his relationship with Richie and his fucking _inner harmony_ or whatever Audra tried to explain to him when they all packed into her and Bev's dorm to do a 'spa day.' It also helped that they were in a huge fucking city, where every person you saw on any given day had so much shit going on in their own life, in addition to the ever-present vague buzz that came from every city's surroundings, that nobody really noticed or cared about whatever weird shit you were doing that would be impossible to miss in a small town. The thought of it stuck to the back of Eddie's brain as he let other things fall away, guiding him on a shaky path to being comfortable with himself that he wasn't about to turn away from.  
  
The longer they were in California, the more Derry seemed like a distant memory. Eddie had spent his entire life in that town, living in fear that if he were _too_ himself, too feminine, too queer, to _anything_ , other people would try and force himself back into whatever boxes they thought he should have fit in, and he would die before he ever escaped them. Those risks had seem monumental then, but he was three thousand miles away, and the thought of not wanting to talk to Richie _too_ much, want Richie too much, because he might get killed for it, just made the people who _would_ kill him for that, look idiotic. Eddie never liked to think of himself as above anybody else--he had his own slew of issues that definitely did not put him on any pedestals--but those people, they could choke. Eddie always knew they were fucking dumb, but now it was just plain pathetic. Derry wasn't in his worst fears anymore, it was only a stumbling block on his whole life story, whose only purpose was to add conflict so, when he got to California, he would see just how good life was supposed to be.  
  
He'd dragged Richie around the first two days they were there, mapping out the routes to all of their classes and dining halls, plus restaurants for when one of the Losers inevitably thought that there weren't enough choices and tried to outsource their food supply. Eddie and Richie had planned for this in their budget, made up of the money from their summer jobs and the small amount of money Sonia gave Eddie for expenses, but not so much money he could buy anything 'unruly'. Eating out shouldn't decimate their budget, but Eddie knew they were going to blow it the moment they found somewhere they really liked, because they were the weirdest creatures of habit in the weirdest fucking ways. Everything big could be thrown up in the air to land wherever gravity left it, but menial things like dinner, or clothes, or grocery stores, they would find one place and stick to it until they either died or the place shut down. They already had their eye on a few places, notably a smoothie place near their dorm that neither of them would be able to resist for much longer.   
  
They'd all swapped schedules at the beginning of the year, to keep tabs on each other, and so Eddie could know when to force Mike to come with him to the farmers' market just off campus, or when Stan would call whoever was available to go get brunch with him. It was like high school, knowing which classes everyone was in and when, but also so different, because they were scattered across campus and actually had to pretend like they knew what they were doing. Eddie savored it then, though, since he knew it would become less frequent once classes actually began, and they weren't just in syllabus week. He had no doubt they would still see each other constantly, but maybe just...not... _as_ constantly. He would just have to see.  
  
One of the reasons Eddie was so certain they would all stay together, though, was due to Richie's either incredibly brilliant or incredibly stupid idea to copy all of their dorm keys, and give them to each other so they all could get into each other's dorms. Their RA specifically told them they couldn't do this, but breaking rules in the name of their friendship was a language every Loser was fluent in, Eddie noted, when he and Beverly went through the paint swatches in the hardware store after the key copy guy told them it would be another half hour. After they got them, they broke into Stan and Mike's room, ramming Mike in the back with the door and shoving him into the wall while Stan screamed at the sudden intrusion, because he thought they were getting fucking robbed. Like a robber would have a fucking key. Like Eddie would _want_ their ancient mini fridge that was maybe one day newer than his and Richie’s mini fridge.  
  
What started as excitement at being able to visit one another almost instantly dissolved into borderline paranoia. Eddie had all these fucking feelings about being able to be with Richie without the prying eyes of Derry and everyone in it trying to catch them in their Sacrilegious Entanglement, but the thought of the other Losers bursting into their door while Eddie was trying to _show_ Richie the result of his new fucking feelings, essentially blocked Eddie from feeling any sort of overly romantic feelings for Richie for a good week. Which felt like _torture_ , especially since they'd only had sex for the first time _days_ before, and Eddie's entire _being_ was itching to do it again.  
  
Richie would try to kiss him, and Eddie would panic and pull away, afraid that one of their friends would walk in and Eddie would be so mortified he'd have to run away and live under an assumed name for his entire life. Even if they hadn't been _doing_ anything, someone could walk and somehow know that he'd been _thinking_ about Richie, without him even needing him to say it, and for the rest of his life Eddie would have to deal with knowing that one of their best friends knew _whatever_ they knew, because Eddie had been dumb enough to give them a key. He didn't want to take the keys back, he liked having the openness he did with everybody else, but he didn't want to be near-mauling Richie with his mouth only to have Mike walk in and ask what the fuck they were doing. He was too young to choose his assumed name.

It lasted until Richie put a sign on their door that he made in .2 seconds with a sharpie and loose leaf that said 'DO NOT DISTURB' with everybody's names on it, and then kissed Eddie so hard he forgot to be concerned about it in the first place.  
  
Richie was a huge part of why life was so fucking great for Eddie right now; not with school itself, because they shared two classes, and one was a fucking seminar requirement at eight in the morning that Richie almost always slept through, but just because he was there with him. The love of his life, that he got to love here, with him in California, a testament to the fact that they didn't have to die to get out of Derry.  
  
Everywhere Eddie freaked out and doubted that maybe going from 0 to 60 in two seconds flat wasn't the best option, Richie was always there to remind him that oh, yeah, life could _only_ get better from here, even if he had to assure him of it eight times a day. He decided to start growing his hair out, though it hadn't become noticeable yet. Eddie didn't know what he was gonna do when it _was_ noticeable, because the thought of a long haired Richie somehow didn't gross him out as much as he thought it would have, and the thought of all the _opportunities_ opened up by this...outweighed any concerns Eddie might have had. If he was honest, though, Richie could decide that wearing clown face paint and dressing up like a nun every day was his new _thing_ , and it would still drive Eddie to insane levels of horniness he didn't think were possible. He realized this when Richie cut _several_ of his fifty cent thrift store shirts into tank tops to cope with the California heat, and Eddie hated that he didn't hate all of Richie's shirts having huge open side panels like his torso was a fucking zoo attraction.

Then there were the _parties_. The thing about not being considered a 'freak' in college, because everyone was equally out of place in so many different ways that there was no 'place' for anyone to be in anymore, is that nobody thought you weren't normal enough to go to the random events they threw parties for.

Eddie acknowledged this at a frat party that had so much energy it could power the whole state. The biggest party Eddie had ever been invited to to date was around two hundred people, but that’s only because it was Bill’s graduation party and he had to go be supportive, and there were what felt like a million people just in that room alone. And to be fair, he was only invited to this party due to Bill getting an invite to bring whoever he wanted, because Eddie was busy spending that entire week adding every single due date from every syllabus from every class into this big ass desk calendar he bought, and met exactly zero fucking people, while Richie snored loudly in Eddie's bed behind him and also met no new fucking people. But it was fine, because Bill invited them, and Eddie was here. That was all that was important.

The pounding beat of Rhythm of the Night beat against Eddie's bones, resetting his heartbeat to match it. He couldn't even guess the time, or how long they'd been there, and the music felt like it had been one long play of this same song all night, and all of the lyrics blended together into one sequence. His breath came out in harsh pants, Eddie's eyes tracing the long column of Richie's throat, sweat dripping down his skin. Eddie swallowed hard as Richie 'danced', if jumping up and down half a beat off rhythm could be called dancing, throwing his head back away from Eddie and letting his jaw open slightly, his unkempt hair sticking out in every direction except from where it was stuck to his forehead.  
  
Eddie wasn't dancing anymore, feet planted on the ground while the button of Richie's jeans dragged against Eddie's stomach as he kept dancing. Eddie scanned his body, his neon pink shirt barely covering the span of his chest, baggy jeans dropped low on his hips in a way Richie never wore them, only allowed by gravity. He was fucking magnetic, the heat radiating off him like the sun, pulling Eddie further into his orbit. His necklace with the ring Eddie gave him on it leapt off of his chest underneath his shirt, as he struggled to keep the beer in his cup with him jumping like that. Eddie hated beer, but he didn't mind it so much when he was licking the taste of it from Richie's mouth, and in that moment, that was all he wanted to do.  
  
He blinked to bring himself back to the present, grabbing Richie's hips gently to stop him, the abrupt stop of momentum sending beer sloshing over the rim of the cup and against the palm of Richie's hand, which instinctively dropped it at the weird feeling. Richie screamed as the cup plummeted to the carpeted floor, which was drowned out by the music and the crowd so it only sounded like a whisper. He looked up at Eddie, the corners of his mouth shooting downwards and shrugging, the expression partially obscured by Richie's fogged glasses. He swung his head to get his sweaty hair out of his eyes, chest rising and falling steeply as Richie tried to catch his breath. They were both getting showers when they got home, long ones, because the room had reached boiling temperatures and Eddie knew they both could feel it, but he didn't fucking care about that.  
  
Richie coming out had been a whole awakening for Eddie in Derry, because all of a sudden the person Eddie knew most in the world had actually shown him the one part of himself he'd been intentionally _hiding_ , and it just so happened to line up with the piles of gay feelings Eddie had been keeping secret forever. And Richie had barely changed then. He got braver in his expressions, more discreet in his jokes, more comfortable in his own skin, and Eddie was basically always semi-hard for him _then_ , and that was before he even knew California Richie existed.  
  
California Richie was like regular Richie, except he knew he wasn't going to end up dead in a ditch somewhere for walking too close to Eddie, or for kissing him where other people could see. He knew he didn't have to pick his words carefully, and they tumbled out at a rapid fire pace, no longer afraid to let his personality slip out and be too revealing, because he had nothing to hide. His laugh was louder, brighter, and he smiled at Eddie whenever he looked at him, without being scared somebody would think it meant what it did. He walked taller, which was a downside because Eddie now had to reach up that much higher, but he could live with it if it meant seeing Richie that much more comfortable in his own skin.  
  
A lot of Eddie's hang-ups had fallen away since coming to school, too. The inevitable reality of everything around him having been touched by thousands, if not millions, of people before him, gave Eddie two choices: break down entirely, or get over it. And he didn't pay an absurd amount of tuition and drive for three days straight to get here just to break down over it, and have to give up his entire future for the sake of his old fears. They were still there, somewhere, but Eddie finally felt like he could breathe under the weight of them, instead of being crushed. He was allowed to take his time with things, instead of speeding directly into panic, like his heart had been tied up for so many years, and those bindings were finally coming loose.  
  
He noticed it most in times like that, when the aching feeling of want washed over him, and he realized he wasn't in any rush to quell that feeling.  
  
Eddie's childhood bedroom was never the fucking testament to seduction settings, and he and Richie managed to spare moments where they didn't have to rush through getting off just so they wouldn't be heard, but more often than not, it was about the end goal more than the details of how they got there. Snagging at a free twenty minute window when they had it, before Sonia broke the door down or one of them suffocated in the humidity building underneath their comforter. He hadn't actually _seen_ Richie naked in his bedroom until weeks after they started doing anything.  
  
In California, though, Eddie could look at any part of Richie any time he wanted to. The do not disturb sign on their door and the fact that, while inconsiderate, they really didn't have to worry about anyone hearing because they never had to look their neighbors in the eyes, let Eddie take all of his pent up yearning feelings he was never able to put into that aspect of their relationship, and _pour_ it into it.  
  
Finding out how to get Richie off as efficiently as possible had been easy, because they both had the same general terrain and they were teenage hormonal messes, but discovering how to wind each other up and pick each other apart was something Eddie fell into an obsession with. It wasn't like he couldn't hold a normal conversation, or that he'd made their entire lives about sex, but when he was into figuring Richie out, he got _into_ figuring Richie out. Eddie was also learning things about himself, too, as he reacted to Richie and vice versa.  
  
"What?" Richie asked, but Eddie couldn't hear him, could only watch with a cinematic slow motion shot, while waiting for Eddie to answer, he lifted his fingers to his own mouth and began licking the beer off of his fingers, weaving his tongue in literally the least attractive way anybody could do anything, with his wet hair framing his face, bug eyes wide at Eddie while he waited.  
  
It should be gross. Eddie was trying to _make it_ gross, but his mind and his dick weren't on speaking terms, as he thought about Richie's hands, his mouth, his tongue, pushing his hips into Richie's and whimpering when his own cock twitched.  
  
"Eddie?" Richie asked, eyebrows furrowed. "You okay?"  
  
Wrapping his hand around Richie's wrist and turning it so Eddie was looking at the palm of his hand. He glanced up at Richie, whose eyes were growing wider by the fucking minute, like they soon would just roll out onto the floor, before wrapping his lips around Richie's first two fingers. Eddie's brain had been dipped in a syrupy fog of _want_ , sucking on Richie's fingers down to the second knuckle. His eyes fluttered shut so Richie wouldn't see them roll to the back of his head.  
  
Eddie whined as Richie slung an arm around his waist and pulled them closer together, jaw dropping open as Eddie sucked Richie's fingers deeper into his mouth. He could feel Richie gasp against him, his head dropping and knocking into Eddie's. The taste of beer mixed with the salt of Richie's sweat felt intoxicating, his thoughts spinning in his head as all he could think of was Richie, Richie, Richie. What air he could get felt too hot, molecules of it sticking to his forehead and filling his ears with TV static.  
  
Eddie looked up at Richie, sliding his ring finger in his mouth. He laughed around him as Richie's eyes went dark, using his leverage to slip his fingertips from Eddie's tongue and press against the back of his teeth, pushing the heel of his hand under Eddie's chin to drag him closer, shifting his fingers until they hit the back of Eddie's throat, pressing down so he gagged. Tears pricked the corner of Eddie's eyes, but he blinked them away.  
  
" _Shit_ ," Richie whispered, as spit slipped down the corners of Eddie's mouth. The song playing faded out, and Eddie whined high in his throat as the next one started and Richie tried to extend his fingers further. He licked around them and sucked down harder, when Richie pulled his fingers out of his mouth and wiped them on his jeans. "You trying to kill me or somethin'?"  
  
Eddie held back from coughing and wiping his lips on his arm. "Since when do you talk like that?" He tangled his fingers into Richie's hair and pulled him down to kiss him, smiling as Richie squeezed around his waist. Eddie could feel the outline of Richie through his jeans, desperately wishing he knew the layout of this house so he could find _somewhere_ to go where he'd be able to get his mouth around Richie, his mouth watering just thinking about it.   
  
That was another new thing for Eddie, that surprised him _deeply_ when he first acknowledged it. Richie was a loud fucking person, and that translated into everything he did regardless of circumstances, which made it really fucking inconvenient for Eddie's long standing fantasy of being able to suck Richie's dick in any capacity before then. He _rambled_ , his voice shaking when Eddie found a rhythm he liked, breathing harshly and moaning low in his chest when he came. When he tried to muffle it, he would only end up being louder, the dam in his brain cracking open and flooding his senses. Eddie loved it, and tried to make up for lost time every opportunity he got.  
  
"Since when do you _do_ that _?_ " Richie asked, laughing breathlessly. Eddie rolled his eyes and kept kissing him, refusing to pull away even when they ran out of breath, breathing in each other's space. Eddie barely paused, not giving them a moment to truly recover before kissing him again.  
  
Richie didn't question it, just leaned in closer, gripping Eddie's hips hard as he slid his tongue into Eddie's mouth. Eddie pulled back, biting Richie's jaw and leaning up to whisper in his ear. He looked over and made eye contact with Ben, who was darker than usual. Eddie guessed he was blushing, but couldn't really tell with the lights changing colors, as he stared at them rapidly blinking like he was just trying to erase what he saw from his memory. Eddie laughed as Ben snapped his head to attention when Beverly walked up to him.  
  
"Come with me," Eddie yelled, as quiet as he could get if he wanted Richie to hear him over all of the noise, turning to guide them out of the room with Richie's hands still on his hips.  
  
Eddie laughed as they stumbled out of the house, after weaving through the packs of people and finding a door to the backyard out of the kitchen, pulling Richie onto the small patio and ducking through a beer pong game bordering on violence until Eddie found a side gate. Richie followed him without question, most likely because Eddie wouldn't be able to hear any questions he had anyway, letting go of his hips and grabbing his hand so he wouldn't fall behind. Eddie dragged Richie behind him into the first shaded spot he could find, a broken house light hanging above them as Eddie turned and pushed Richie against the wall.  
  
Richie oofed, the wind knocked out of him as his back hit the siding, the slight breeze starting to dry Richie's hair, making his skin cold to the touch when Eddie kissed him, cupping the back of Richie's neck. He felt like fucking ravenous, licking into Richie's mouth and rocking their hips together. Eddie gasped at the friction while Richie's breath stuttered, fisting his hands in Eddie's shirt. He wanted to go back to their dorm, get Richie in his bed and pick him apart, drawing it out into the early hours of the morning until he was trembling underneath him, but the thrumming under his skin couldn't wait the time it would take to round up all of their friends and walk home.  
  
"What has gotten _into_ you?" Richie laughed, then paused. "Wait, don't answer that."  
  
Eddie smiled against Richie's neck as he reached down between them to undo Richie's belt. "If I get my way, I think you'll know what's in me," he muttered. Richie rolled his eyes and bucked into Eddie's touch as he snaked his hand in his underwear, gripping Richie's cock at the base.  
  
"S-Shit, Eddie." His breath shook as Eddie ran his hand down his cock, not really trying to do anything, just mapping him out as he mouthed at Richie's clothed shoulder. "What do you want?"  
  
Eddie rolled his eyes. There had been _several_ conversations, about Eddie basically word vomiting at him all the shit he wanted to do to him, and _with_ him, while Richie sat and listened, bright red, while saying fucking nothing. He always just _agreed_ with whatever Eddie wanted, which was fine until Eddie _realized_ Richie wasn't ever suggesting anything or fucking...putting in any feedback or whatever he was supposed to be doing that Eddie was concerning himself with and making scheduled 'them time' to tell him, and then he felt gross and manipulative until Richie blurted out that he would do anything Eddie fucking wanted, and it was easier to just let Eddie ask him for things, because then he would already know it was something Eddie wanted. Eddie forgot how to speak, after that, his hands shaking with how turned on he was at the fact that Richie would literally...admit that without coaxing like it wasn't the hottest thing Eddie ever heard.  
  
" _What do you want?_ " Eddie mocked, scoffing as Richie laughed at him, but pulling back just to see his face. "What do you _think_ I want? I want to suck your dick, dumbass. Are you gonna let me?"  
  
"You know," Richie shoved his hips forward and knocked into Eddie's legs. "This is not the attitude someone _usually_ uses when asking to suck their boyfriend off." He hissed as Eddie squeezed around him. "I'm halfway inclined to go back inside."  
  
Eddie pulled Richie's dick out of his boxers, mouth watering at the weight of him in Eddie's hand. He looked down, groaning at the difference between his hand and Richie's cock, still not over the fact that all of Richie's jokes as a kid were fucking true, and still not over the fact that Eddie was right about it the whole time. He'd guessed it before, but most of it had been wishful thinking, a kink he refused to admit he had out loud but _definitely_ had, but no. Apparently, when your whole fucking childhood dream of being in reciprocal love with your best friend comes true, _every_ part comes true. How nice.  
  
"As if," Eddie muttered, shivering as Richie's breath fanned across his forehead. "You try and walk back in with this thing and you'll take someone's fucking eye out." He looked down at his hand moving and moaned, dropping his forehead on Richie's shoulder. "Can I?"  
  
"Since you asked so _nicely_ ," Richie choked, trying to smile and not make any noises at the same time. Eddie would be upset, since one of his favorite fucking things was hearing Richie, in any context but especially this one, whether it was him talking nonsensically or low throaty noises he made when Eddie did something right, but he really needed them to not get caught. If Eddie had to break himself out of his own self-induced haze to haul ass back to their dorm while Richie struggled to wind up his garden hose of a dick and escape.  
  
Eddie smiled against Richie's neck and kissed him there. "How kind of you."  
  
He pushed away from his body and dropped to his knees, not even minding the still-wet mulch on the ground from the earlier rainstorm getting his jeans wet. Richie wasn't even breathing, holding it like it would do fucking anything, as Eddie took his cock into his mouth, and he let all of the air out of his body at once, until Eddie thought he would go flat against the siding. He whimpered as Eddie sucked the head of his dick, swirling his tongue around him as Richie shuddered and buried his hands in Eddie's hair. The weight of it in his mouth always drove him a little crazy, made him that much more eager to learn exactly how to make Richie feel how he did, as he sucked lightly at the head of his cock.   
  
" _God_ ," Richie groaned, shifting his weight from feet to his back, further into the side of the house. Eddie looked up at the feeling of eyes on him, Richie staring right back like he'd been caught doing something wrong. Eddie slid down further, groaning at the feeling of him heavy and hot in his mouth, the warm summer night making sweat bead on Eddie's forehead. Eddie heard a thud as Richie's head hit the wall, his jaw clicking as it dropped open that made Eddie think he had TMJ. "Oh my fuck, I'm in love with you."  
  
Eddie pulled away so he didn't choke, laughing into Richie's hip. He looked up at him, Richie's clenched jaw and bright red face visible even in the dimness of the street lights.  
  
"I didn't mean it like _that_. 'S not just because you're--"  
  
"No shit!" Eddie laughed, biting the waistband of Richie's jeans when it grazed his lips. He could feel the goosebumps on Richie's skin as he let go of his pants to mouth at his hip bone, biting down gently before sucking a mark there. "You're my boyfriend, dumbass. I know that!"  
  
"Well, _I don't know!_ How often do I tell you I love you? I have no idea! We've only been together three and a half months, what if you thought I didn't--"  
  
Richie kept talking, but Eddie...Eddie wasn't listening anymore. So much had happened in the past three months he didn't even realize that him and Richie only got together at the tail end of the school year, and this was the very beginning of another one. Three months was nothing. A woman three months pregnant was barely showing, and they were outside a frat party, showing _everything._ To realize he'd only spent three months knowing Richie loved him back, was the kind of unspoken reality that knocked Eddie backwards, as he sat back on his heels.  
  
He knew _why_ it felt like so long. The last time Eddie didn't care about Richie, he was five years old, and didn't even know there was a Richie to care about. Since the moment they met, Eddie loved him, and he would until he fucking died. He couldn't remember what it felt like to not love him, and the reminder that he'd only been putting all that affection into practice for less than four fucking months. He needed a minute.  
  
Still processing, he took a deep breath. "Are you gonna let me suck your dick or _not?_ " Eddie demanded. "I'm _certain_ we can have this conversation at any other point, but I actually think I'm gonna lose it if I don't have you halfway down my throat in, like, two seconds."  
  
"I'm gonna fucking lose it in two seconds if you say that ever again."  
  
"...I'm fine with that."  
  
"Fuck o- _off!_ " Richie's laughed whisper turned into a drawn out moan when Eddie took his cock back into his mouth, his head smacking painfully on the wall, but not reacting otherwise. He bucked his hips forward into Eddie's mouth, making Eddie's eyes roll back into his head. "Shit, shit, sorr-- _Eddie_."  
  
Eddie took him deeper until he felt the head of Richie's cock hit the back of his throat, breathing in shallowly through his nose and blinking tears out of his eyes. He stared up at Richie again, not even caring that he looked hideous (he'd made the face in the mirror several times just to see...and didn't know how Richie ever let him do this if that was his view), nodding when Richie raised an eyebrow at him. His skin smelled like sweat and Richie, his cologne and something else that made Eddie's chest feel lighter, like a comfort filling his head and making him feel all...floaty.  
  
"Okay. Fuck, shit, okay." Richie buried his hands tighter in Eddie's hair, not enough to hurt him, not thrusting his hips so much as swinging them forward, a tantalizing glide of his cock along Eddie's mouth, saliva pooling in the corner of his lips and dripping down his mouth. He whined as Richie held him there, willing himself not to choke around him. He could feel Richie's hands shaking, scratching dully at his scalp, Richie's cock filling his mouth, his heart pounding in his ears. His own dick was straining in his jeans, but he couldn't even think clearly enough to really move. His whole fucking mind was Richie, his long legs and his hands splayed across Eddie's head, his lanky ass body surrounding him until he was drowning in him, floating between his plane of existence and the next.  
  
Richie's hips stuttered and he whined, his body curling in on itself. "I-I'm really not gonna last, dude," he breathed. Eddie could picture his face, eyes fluttering shut as he lost himself in the feeling. His hand caught on a knot in Eddie's hair and Eddie groaned, gasping around Richie's cock as he took him as far as he could physically go, his hand wrapping around what he couldn't fit in his mouth.  
  
"E _ddie_ ," Richie groaned, so loudly that it echoed into the night over the party behind them, as he came in Eddie's mouth. He pulled back so he wouldn't choke, but swallowed around him, pressing his free hand against his own dick still trapped in his jeans, squeezing his eyes shut as a shock of pleasure ran through him. "Oh my god."  
  
Richie heaved as Eddie pulled off of him, his mouth too wet with a mix of spit and Richie's come. Before he could do anything about it, Richie hauled him upwards and kissed him, making it impossible to tell whether he was taking away the mess or adding to it. Eddie moaned as Richie kissed him, forfeiting his leverage to unbutton Eddie's jeans and yank down his zipper, diving his hand into Eddie's pants.  
  
"Holy _shit_." Eddie fell onto Richie and pressed him against the house again, rolling his hips into Richie's hand as he stroked him quickly, not with the urgency of having to get Eddie to come, but knowing how fucking close he was, whimpering against Richie's neck as he inhaled his cologne and sweat.  
  
"You're so fucking-- _God_ ," Richie breathed, jerking him faster. "Sucked my soul out, Edster."  
  
Eddie could barely spare the time to be mad at the nickname before he was coming, spilling onto Richie's hand with a silent cry while Richie groaned loudly, like he _always_ did when Eddie came. He gripped the back of Richie's neck like a vice, feeling like his body was a pulled rubber band finally snapping, riding out his orgasm for what felt like _hours_. He opened his eyes to see Richie lift his hand to his mouth, licking Eddie's come off of the back of his hand. All the air fucking zipped out of the world as Eddie's cock twitched again, writhing against the oversensitivity but refusing to look away while Richie licked his hand clean.  
  
"Do you _like_ killing me?" Eddie asked him, tucking his dick back into his pants and letting Richie do the same.  
  
He rolled his eyes as Richie slung his arm over Eddie's shoulder, kissing the side of his head. "Maybe."  
  
\---  
  
The light breeze in the air that passed over them was a welcome feeling as they walked home from the party, sometime before sunrise, but Eddie could tell it was coming, the sky edging from inky purple to lavender in above them. Richie and him knocked into each other as they trailed behind Ben and Beverly, exhausted from the entire night and too blissed out to say anything to each other. He honestly smelled like a gym sock, his own sweat cooling on his skin, with Richie probably no better than he was, tangling their fingers together as they stumbled down the street towards their dorm.  
  
"Y'all awake back there?" Beverly asked, her face flushed as she spun to face them, turning out of Ben's arms to face them, still holding his hand between them. Ben wouldn't look at either of them, since before, and Eddie didn't know if he really wanted him to or not. A lot can be said with eye contact, and Eddie wasn't entirely in control of anything at the moment, let alone working past the post-orgasm floaty feeling he was still relishing in. He didn't want to have to try and convey an apology, because Richie was hot as fuck and Eddie wasn't sorry for it, but he also didn't want to look _too_ proud, and make Ben uncomfortable in being a pawn in their weird game. Not that Richie even knew about his weird moment with Ben, or ever would.  
  
"Depends, Marsh," Richie mumbled, nearly knocking Eddie off the sidewalk before gripping his hand and pulling him back so he didn't smack head first into the wet grass. "If we say no, are you gonna carry us back to our room?"  
  
Bev laughed out loud, light and carrying, and Eddie smiled. "You wish! You may look like a twig, Rozier, and I may be ripped, but you weigh like a thousand pounds."  
  
"'S my dick," Richie answered, and Eddie rolled his eyes. Ben went _rigid_.  
  
"More like your ego!" She snorted, walking forward once again and swinging her arm up around Ben's waist.  
  
Richie didn't respond, smug little asshole smile on his face that he knew he didn't have to argue back. He liked to show off when it was a mystery to everyone, but Eddie knew exactly what he was smiling about, and so he just closed his eyes, licked his lips, and stared at the sky as they came to a corner, holding his and Eddie's hands to his chest like he was thanking somebody. Hell, maybe he was.  
  
\---  
  
" _Richie_ ," Eddie whined, as Richie reached above him _again_ , for the **third time** , and turned the lamp back on after Eddie switched it off. "I want to go to _sleep_."  
  
"It's four minutes to midnight!" He squawked, warm hand coming back to rest under Eddie's shoulder blade. "Who chickens out four minutes before the fucking goal? Where's the dedication?" Richie ranted while he nestled himself underneath the covers. Eddie hummed against his skin, unable to relax until he felt Richie's glasses hit their nightstand and the light turned off. Knowing this, Richie persisted. "It's your eighteenth birthday! You wanna sleep through it like an asshole? You wanna be _that_ bitch at the sleepover?"  
  
Eddie heaved his body off of Richie and flopped down next to him on their bed, pressing their bodies together in the confined space. "Ignoring the fact that you called what is essentially our first apartment a _sleepover_ , I am too tired to stay up for the next ten minutes without actually dying. Is that what you want? For me to fucking _die_ ? On my **_birthday_ _?_** "  
  
Richie rolled his eyes and sighed, folding his hands over his chest. The silence they could be spending sleeping itched against Eddie's skin until he couldn't take it anymore, scrambling up to turn off the light before Richie caught his wrist and wrapped his arms around it so Eddie couldn't move.  
  
"R _ic_ _h_ ** _ie_ ** !" Eddie tugged so Richie would let him go but Richie wouldn't budge, so he bent down and bit him on the arm so he would jump back, giving Eddie the opportunity to scramble above him to turn the lamp off again. Richie protested and grabbed Eddie around the waist, throwing them both on their side and then rolled them so Eddie landed on his back. Richie went dead on top of him, his lanky body keeping Eddie effectively pinned there.  
  
"Can you get off of me?" Eddie whispered, winded, wanting Richie to get up as much as he didn't. He knew Richie's dick had been a thing for him, but he didn't know that extended to... _all_ of him. He didn't want to concern himself with it, though, because it was late and he wanted to actually go to bed at some point, whenever that would be. He shifted underneath him, sighing as the pressure of Richie's body on top of his let all of his stress leave him. Richie muttered something like an apology, but Eddie wrapped his arms around his waist and held him there. He buried his face in Richie's bare shoulder and breathed in his body wash. He smelled like spearmint.  
  
Eddie felt safe, like this, surrounded in the familiar feeling of him, the warmth spreading down the front of his body while his sides got goosebumps where the comforter had fallen away. Richie grumbled, slumping down to tuck his head into Eddie's neck and kiss him lightly there. Eddie could fall asleep like this, with the two of them pressed together, if only he could get that fucking light off.  
  
"Eds, look," Richie whispered, comically squinting without his glasses on at their nightstand. Eddie pulled away from him, to see the clock read '12:01' in bright red letters.  
  
Before he could react, Richie kissed him gently, wiggling his arms out from under Eddie to place one hand on his waist and the other on his jaw, the faint taste of his mouthwash lingering on his lips. Eddie's heart beat heavily in his chest, so overcome with love for Richie he could hardly stand it, his whole body moved with it. Like, he was going to hate it tomorrow when he woke up half dead and pissed beyond belief, but he knew it would be fine. Normal college kids went to bed past midnight all the time, and they lived. They looked tired and depressed, but they were alive. Plus, he was kind of excited for his birthday. Being the youngest Loser, who only _just_ scraped by on the cut off date for school that would have had him at home for another year, objectively sucked, especially when he was the only one who wasn't a legal adult. He was now, though, and Richie's excitement over it was really fucking cute, even if he was pretending to be annoyed about it. Richie smiled against his mouth, his face warm against Eddie's, and leaned back.  
  
"Happy birthday." He beamed at him, cheesy and showing all of his teeth. "We can finally have sex now without me getting arrested!"  
  
Richie got up and turned the lamp off, bathing the room in darkness. Eddie sighed in pure fucking relief as Richie flopped back into bed, pulling Eddie into his chest and shoving his ice cold feet between Eddie's calves. What a great present. Eddie groaned and nudged him, but settled back into the curve of Richie's torso as his equally cold hands spread across his chest. Eddie was starting to suspect he had anemia.  
  
He wrapped his hands around Richie's to try and warm them. "So you're telling me I could've had you arrested this whole time? Why didn't I think of that sooner?"  
  
Eddie could feel Richie roll his eyes. "Har har, go the fuck to sleep. You have me sleeping like a fucking nun since we got here, and I'm _exhausted_."  
  
"You're the one who wanted to stay up!" Eddie looked at Richie behind him, moonlight lighting all of his curls so he looked like a weird clown. An angel, but also a weird clown. But, not the kind that killed people. Just. The kind that Richie was. Eddie turned to face him. "But hey, it _is_ my birthday…"  
  
Richie laughed so loud it lit up Eddie's whole chest to hear it. "No fucking way! We can have legal sex later _after_ class tomorrow."  
  
"Not that!" Eddie yelped, pushing at him. "...I just...I want--" Eddie closed his mouth and pulled his lips between his teeth, trying to find the words to say so he didn't sound like a fucking creep.  
  
"Just say it," Richie whispered, staring at Eddie like he never saw another human person before. "I'll give you anything you want, Eddie."  
  
Eddie stared at Richie with an unrestrained amount of rage at just, the--The _careless_ way he said it. Some things were harder for Eddie than others, especially when he thought about them all the time but has never had the courage to ask. This was one of those things. Even though he knew, more than ever, that Richie would never make fun of him for shit like that. Even now, Richie just laid back with his eyes closed, one arm draped across Eddie's sliver of the bed, waiting for him to either ask for what he wanted or return back to where he had been.  
  
"...Can I smell your fucking hair?" Eddie asked, face burning in the darkness as he thanked God Richie couldn't see it.  
  
Richie smiled and raised his eyebrows, obviously wanting to make fun of him, but trying to stick to his word. "Yeah. You want me to scooch further down or do you wanna sit up? Probably gonna fuck up your back, though."  
  
"Scooch, please."  
  
"You got it, birthday boy." Richie flipped onto his stomach while Eddie laid flat on his back, flopping down on top of him once he got back under the covers. Richie sighed and smiled against Eddie's chest, right over his heart, his cheek flat against Eddie's sternum. He threw an arm across Eddie's stomach, shoving his other under his hip and his leg between Eddie's. "Is it everything you wanted up there?"  
  
Eddie smiled, as much as he could with sleep mere inches away, breathing in whatever botanical shampoo Richie used, his soft curls tickling under his nose. "Yeah, it really is."  
  
\---  
  
A freshman seminar on social analysis didn't sound entirely shitty, truly. It was better than whatever weird shit Stan was taking that he somehow enjoyed, or whatever Beverly got stuck with when she finally registered for classes a week before the deadline. _However_ , it was the longest fucking seminar in the history of the universe, and because Richie's hair kept tickling his neck and waking him up in the middle of the night, Eddie barely slept a fucking wink.  
  
"If...I start falling asleep...just pinch me," Eddie told Richie, already slumping over the hard arm of the chair and onto Richie's shoulder. "'Kay?"  
  
Richie nodded, keeping his left arm still as his right took notes, which Eddie knew were a good eighty percent random doodling. Eddie hummed and rubbed his forehead against him, breathing in the lavender laundry detergent. He was so _warm_ and soft and his upper arms lacked the sharp angles of the rest of him, providing the best pillow Eddie could ask for in the middle of a lecture hall. He could just close his eyes for a minute, before the prof came in the room to start class, and then ask Bill to give him notes when they were done if he overslept.  
  
Like he could hear his thoughts, Bill whispered over his head as the professor came in the room. "Do you want me to pinch him?"  
  
"Don't you dare," Richie warned, jerking wildly after somebody shushed him, which Eddie knew from experience meant he was making a weird face at them. "It's his birthday, he deserves this."  
  
Bill sighed. "If you say so."  
  
Eddie woke up as students poured out, groaning as he lifted his head from Richie's arm. Bill was gone from his other side, just the two of them and their prof waiting for them to leave.  
  
"Morning," Richie greeted, closing his notebook and standing as Eddie did, not clearing anything from his desk because he hadn't actually put anything on it. "You wanna go get something to eat? I brought money."  
  
Eddie smiled as Richie led them out, taking his hand once they were out of the room and could walk side by side. He knocked into him, the easy way Richie talked to him, not trying to force him to full consciousness yet, settled lightly in Eddie's chest. "No. I want to _go home_ , eat my salad from yesterday--"  
  
"Which is fucking _brown_ by now, you know."   
  
"It's _not!_ But I want to _eat my salad_ and _take a nap_ before our next class, and then not go to it."  
  
Richie startled as he opened the door for Eddie, following him out. "Wait, like, actually?"  
  
"No, not actually, dipshit!" Eddie sighed in the warm air, not Maine-level cold, but not searing hot either, the perfect fucking autumn. "I was just being _dramatic_. I'm gay, it's a thing."  
  
"Sure, just didn't think you'd be so quick to adhere to gay stereotypes so quickly into our gay hub experience. I'm appalled, Edward."  
  
"People change with age," Eddie argued, waving his free hand dismissively.  
  
\---  
  
As they walked back to their dorm, Eddie remembered his ever-present fear of one day mixing up the long line of brown doors that traveled down the burgundy corridor, somehow using one of the four keys on his key ring to open somebody else's dorm, and walk in on them either in the middle of, like, a mental breakdown, the revelation of a deep, dark, hidden family secret that he now inserted himself into the middle of by interrupting, or two people just absolutely going at it, who definitely did not need the image of a mortified Eddie Kaspbrak burned into their retina every time they tried to bang in the future.  
  
At first glance as he swung open the door, Eddie thought his worst dream had come true, as he screamed at the sight of someone sitting on top of someone else, grunting like they were doing some sort of physical labor. But then, no--because that was his lamp, and those were Richie's zebra print sheets on his bed, and that was--oh! It was fucking Stan!  
  
"Staniel Urkel get _off_ of our bed this instant!" Richie scolded, walking into the room behind Eddie and closing the door behind him, probably for the best considering Eddie let out a blood curdling scream when he saw the two of them. "And who are-- _Beverly!_ Oh my god!"  
  
Beverly yelled out and flicked Stan in the forehead, throwing out her arm and knocking over their lamp, sending it clattering to the floor.  
  
"If you ruin my room I swear to _fuck_ I'll kick both of your asses," Eddie whispered to the ceiling, more to God than to them, stomping forward and grabbing Stan around the middle to pull him off of Beverly. Well--half pull him off of Beverly. Stan, weirdly, was a very compact dude, from all his nature walks or whatever him and Mike did when they disappeared into a random nature trail for three hours, and came out with their binoculars swinging and fifteen new weird fucking Latin words that apparently were the names of birds and _not_ demonic incantations. Eddie thought they were equally likely.  
  
"She's insane!" Stan argued, still in Eddie's arms, his legs still draped across the bed as Beverly sat up and threw Richie's pillow at Stan's face.  
  
"You tried to kill me!"  
  
"You tackled me first!"  
  
Richie pulled Eddie back and kissed him. "That was really hot of you."  
  
"I'll kick your ass too, don't think I won't." Eddie kissed him again and turned back to the two assholes that decided to redecorate their dorm for _no fucking reason_ at _fuck all o'clock_. "What are you two even _in_ here for? "  
  
Stan didn't answer, staring at Eddie with a blank face like he didn't hear what he just said, which he definitely did, because they actually shut up for once. Beverly just puckered her lips and stared at the floor, glanced up at Richie, but then back to the floor, like their rug was the hottest piece of interior decor she'd ever seen. Richie sighed and rubbed his eyes underneath his glasses.  
  
"I gave you _both_ specific instructions! Literally _all_ you had to do was drop shit off and, maybe-- _maybe_ \--like, make the bed. Menial! Tasks! I thought we were all _adults_ here!" He dropped his hands to his sides. "When did _I_ become the normal one here?"  
  
"Listen!" Beverly interjected." _I_ was just trying to make it nice. It was _Stanley_ , with his horrible taste, that tried ruining my--"  
  
"Your plans di _rectly_ contradicted my instructions, and I'm a good person who _listens_ , unlike **some** people," he argued, shooting daggers at Beverly. Eddie just sat and watched, because what the fuck else was he supposed to do? Other than the fact that Richie assigned these two specific people to do _something_ for Richie for Eddie for his birthday, Eddie had no clue what was going on. And, judging by the state of things, he didn't want to.  
  
"I did what I had to do!" Beverly interrupted, loudly, shaking the whole building. "I was just trying to be nice, but you were gonna use our last good fucking lighter! And it's got like one go _MAX_ , Stan! One!"  
  
"THAT MAKES YOUR THING USELESS ANY--"  
  
"THE BIRTHDAY BOY IS RIGHT HERE," Richie _belted_ over the two of them, gesturing to Eddie, who was leaning against Richie's desk and watching the show. "Don't go ruining _all_ of my surprises, yeah?"  
  
"How much are you smoking that it only has one fucking light in it?" Eddie asked, crossing his arms over his chest.  
  
Richie and Beverly quit smoking in, like, the tenth grade, because 'reasons', which Eddie later found out was because he and Ben once said they would prefer dating people who didn't smoke, and they'd been two lovesick assholes (still were) and forced each other to quit, which neither Ben nor Eddie minded. Eddie hated that story. It made them seem stuck up, like Eddie hadn't already committed, at that point, to taking Richie any way he would let him. If he smoked, Eddie would hate it and complain daily, _hourly_ , but he would live with it. It took a while, but Eddie did realize that deal breakers, when it came to Richie alone, really weren't a thing. Not for him, at least.  
  
To his surprise, Beverly pulled out the shitty translucent pink disposable lighter she stole from a Unimart when they were sixteen, and apparently carried with her all those years. Eddie had thought she just kept buying new ones, but never got a close look at any of them to notice, because why the fuck would he? The only reason he recognized it now was because Bev drew a dick on one side and vagina on the other, 'in the name of bi rights', which had faded in two years, but was still there.  
  
"She's an old girl," Beverly explained, grazing the sparkwheel and making Stan angrier. "Plus, if I'm smoking, it's not cigarettes anymore. I wanna actually live to see how my life works out. Get famous, and all that."  
  
Richie jumped up. "Hell yeah!"  
  
Beverly didn't react, smiling dreamily and staring into space. "And, y'know...marry Ben and shit, have him build our big fat dream house and we can all be roommates forever." She blinked out of it, blushing lightly. "But that can all come later, long as I'm there to see it." She shrugged, pursing her lips so she didn't show how fucking ecstatic she was about their plan, which. was _dumb_ , because they all made the plan _together_ , and they were all equal parts fucking pumped about it, but it was fine.  
  
"Yeah, yeah, we can do that later. _After_ we get Richie to admit my plan was right," Stan said.  
  
"Nobody is right!" Richie laughed. "I wanted what you had for me, and then I wanted what Bev had for me, and _nobody had to light anything_. Now, go back home, I have a nap to take and a boyfriend to rail."  
  
Eddie interjected. "You are not doing _any_ rail--"  
  
"Bye guys!" Richie all but pushed Beverly and Stan out of their room, slamming the door behind him and snorting as they bickered all the way down the hall. "Now that _that_ 's over," he muttered, pulling his clothes off and body slamming their bed, his hair plastered to his forehead as he turned to look at Eddie, his glasses crooked on his face.  
  
"What was all of that?" Eddie asked, but still took off his jeans and shirt and climbed in their bed, groaning as Richie turned on his side to let him in, but then flopped back on top of him once he was under their blanket.  
  
"Oh nothing, nothing." Richie grunted as he pulled the covers off of Eddie, down to his thighs until Richie could slip his legs in and cover them both, splaying his body over Eddie's. He laughed at Eddie's disbelief, kissing the space between his eyebrows and hummed when Eddie dropped the subject and kissed him, pushing himself up on his elbows so he could kiss him without crushing him. Not that Eddie would have really minded.  
  
Richie pulled away but didn't roll off of him. "Now go to sleep so you can actually stay _awake_ in drug class--"  
  
"That's not what it's called, and I regret sharing any of the same classes with you--"  
  
"Shhh, I can't hear you over the sound of me **_sleeping!_** " He shoved his hair in Eddie's face, and pretended to snore loudly, but not actually as fucking loud as his _actual_ snoring was, because he was truly unaware of how much Eddie suffered. "We're asleep now, go."  
  
Eddie rolled his eyes but didn't argue, sinking further down in their bed as the clean scent of their sheets wrapped him up in sleep.  
  
\---

Eddie leaned against the cool brick of their dorm building, watching time tick by on his watch, not the calculator one, after Richie 'lost it' 'in the move', which he was sure meant it had been thrown on the side of a weird back road on hour, like, one, of their three day journey over here. Eddie was gonna use his extra money he saved by buying fruit at the farmer's market instead of the store to buy a new one, and he couldn't wait to see Richie's face when he did it. Regardless, each time the clock hand inched forward, a new layer of irritation washed over him.  
  
His number one pet peeve above everything else was a lack of punctuation. And Richie _knew_ that. Even if he was still always late, Eddie knew he didn't mean it, but they had a six minute walk to class, and class started in _two minutes_ , and Richie had **just** promised him he would be downstairs in five minutes, fifteen minutes ago. The irritation he felt ate away at him, the fact that he couldn't make Richie move any faster, or that he didn't make Richie get _out_ of bed the moment he left to use the bathroom before they had to go sit in one of the only classes Eddie liked that they shared, settling under his skin.  
  
The glass door swung open, just before Eddie was about to storm in and carry Richie out half-dressed by the ankles, and Richie rushed out with a flushed face and his shirt on backwards.  
  
"We're gonna be late!" Eddie complained, trying not to let his irritation rage, as Richie felt at the neck of his shirt and felt the tag, shoving his arms back in the sleeves and looking like a dumbass as he rolled his shirt around the right way.  
  
"I know!" He blinked distractedly as he tried to feel for his sleeves, shaking his head and shuffling his shirt again. "I...fell asleep...again...sorry." He shimmied the shirt so it was on right and then took off in the direction of their lecture hall, grabbing Eddie's hand once he got his arms out. "Shit. Do you have a pencil?"  
  
"Yeah, I'll give you it when we get there," Eddie said, not really thinking.  
  
They were going to be five minutes late to class, which meant walking in on the prof mid-sentence because Mr. Fischer was _like that_ and then having the whole class stare at them while Richie's gangly noodle legs tangled in people's bag straps and bookbags and he inevitably tripped and ate shit on the floor, while Eddie was standing behind him waiting for him to collect his broken halves of glasses and all the teeth he just lost, while also holding his brush-burned chin all while Eddie grinned apologetically to all of his classmates for just...existing. And then some guy would call out and say that he couldn't see with Eddie standing in the way and he would just have to run out and get hit by a shuttle bus to save himself from living through the shame.  
  
"Stop freaking out," Richie admonished, squeezing Eddie's hand in his. "You're fucking rigid right now."  
  
Eddie blinked as someone shouldered past him on the sidewalk. "It's only our second week of class," he argued. "People who are late don't make good first impressions, or good impressions at all, and then we don't get recommendations for good master's/PhD programs."  
  
"Baby, relax."  
  
"Don't call me baby when I'm freaking out!" Eddie exclaimed, ignoring the way his face heated up at it. "This stuff matters, Richie! And trying to get me to calm down about it isn't helping."  
  
Guilt swelled inside his chest for snapping, but he didn't want to apologize. If nothing else, this was Eddie's fatal problem: his fucking stubbornness. And his awareness of it only annoyed him further. But he was in a mood now and no matter how hard he tried, he was gonna need a minute to feel good enough to say sorry. He tried to make a face at Richie to explain that, but Richie didn't look upset. Like, not even by Eddie's standards, who basically already had a doctorate in analysis of Richie's minute facial expressions to decode how he was feeling.  
  
"I--" Eddie tried, but his mouth snapped shut of its own accord. "I'm not--"  
  
"I know," Richie told him. "You don't have to apologize, Eds, I know you. Just let yourself be pissed off for a little so it doesn't ruin your night."  
  
Eddie sighed and leaned against Richie's arm, which was made more difficult due to the fact that they were _walking_ , but still. His residual irritation always lasted longer than he wanted it to, making him clench his jaw and aftershocks of irritation surged through his body, even if it was dumb or as minuscule as being six minutes late for class.  
  
"I love you?" Eddie muttered, because he _knew_ Richie didn't deserve that, and that Eddie was actually an adult now so he should probably start acting like one.  
  
Richie smiled at him, pulling him closer. "I know."  
  
\---  
  
Class passed by as slowly as it usually did, with Eddie taking notes as Fischer droned on and on. Honestly, he should have been upset that Richie didn't make them even _later_ He loved psychology, but he wasn't really interested in whatever the hell this man was trying to push about drugs.  
  
Eddie looked over at Richie as he took notes, or, well, as Eddie took his own notes and Richie doodled in the margins of his bizarre outlines that somehow made sense to him, and listened to Richie's quiet rambling to himself about nothing. Eddie frowned. Usually Richie's quiet background noise talking helped Eddie focus, like a second stream of consciousness where he could listen to both their class and Richie and focus on both without the distraction of everybody coughing and writing on paper and erasing and fidgeting in their chairs, but now it was too quiet to hear. Another shot of guilt speared Eddie in the chest as he realized it was his fault, for being an _asshole_ since they started their walk to class. He _liked_ hearing Richie talk, and now he didn't know how to undo earlier without making it very obvious he was trying to undo earlier. He frowned at him, staring at the details of Richie's face and tried to overcome his own pride in order to try and make any sort of amends or _anything_ , even if Richie would roll his eyes and stop him, because he was a weird asshole that didn't want an apology if he thought he didn't need one. It was incredibly noble of him, and impossibly infuriating.  
  
Richie looked over at him with his googly eyes and the weird delicate architecture of his face and smiled at him, turning back to his notes, but now noticing that Eddie was still staring at him as he wrote. He looked back to the front, but kept on talking, only this time loud enough that Eddie could hear. Eddie smiled and kept writing notes, calmed by the pleasant hum of Richie's rambling as class ticked by only that much faster.  
  
\---  
  
Richie leaned over closer to Eddie as everyone argued around them about _something_. Eddie wasn't really listening, thinking about how happy he was that he was with his friends on his birthday, at the closest Chinese restaurant to campus, because they had an obsession with it. The closest Chinese restaurant to Derry was in Bangor, because who the fuck would settle down in Derry, and there was a point during junior year where every damn weekend they'd be piling into Panda King, just, absolutely depraved like they hadn't eaten in the six days since they'd been there, with a pile of crumpled up bills between them and a special bag in which to hoard fortune cookies, which was still in Bev and Audra's dorm. They were never opened unless they needed it, unless one of them was so hopeless or so afraid that they needed _something_ to tell them it would be okay. So far, none of them had needed it since they went to California. Eddie saw it as a sign.  
  
This restaurant in particular, though, had these deep U-shaped booths that they loved, because all eight of them could cram into one without having to get a long ass family sized table where, in order to talk to someone on the opposite end, you had to scream. Not that they weren't screaming anyway, because none of them had the ability to speak in a normal volume, but you had to do it even louder. With the amount of restaurants they'd been asked to leave before, Eddie was surprised they hadn't been blacklisted from eating out altogether.  
  
"You alright?" Richie whispered, poking Eddie's pinky with his until Eddie linked them together, smiling up at him.  
  
"No, your fat head is blocking Beverly from my view," Eddie answered, pulling Richie's hand closer and wrapping his hand around it. "I just like watching the chaos."  
  
Beverly slammed her hands down on the table so hard it made the ice in Eddie's water shake. "We're getting them on our ass and that's final!"  
  
"But then where would Richie get his?" Stan asked, gasping as Richie threw a balled up straw paper at him.  
  
"Just because I'm flat doesn't mean I've got _nothing_ ," Richie huffed. "I still _have_ an ass. I could get a tattoo on my ass."  
  
Eddie shoved at him. "You do not and you can _not_. We are _not_ getting our group tattoo on our fucking asses. We can get them on our foreheads, like Americans."  
  
"Woo!" Richie yelled, kissing Eddie's cheek. "This is why I love you, you have the best ideas."  
  
Stan sighed. "I'll get mine on my chest or some shit, I guess." He unrolled and ripped up the paper Richie threw at him. "Though, my ass would hurt less, right?"  
  
"With what you're packing back there, I would be surprised if you could feel it at all," Richie told him, whistling slowly.  
  
Eddie let his head fall onto his free hand. "Oh my god."  
  
"I fucking hate you," Stan said, bright red despite his blank face. "But thank you for saying I have a nice ass."  
  
"Can't thank me for facts, Stanny."  
  
Eddie sat up. "I've made the executive decision that I'm single. I am. Single now. Taking offers."  
  
Richie laughed loudly and untangled their hands to pull Eddie's head close and kiss his hair. "Love you, Spaghetti."  
  
"What _ever_ ," Eddie muttered, but also didn't entirely move out of Richie's space once he let him go.  
  
Eddie didn't know how he planned to sleep that night, too excited about their appointment at the tattoo shop the next day to actually relax. They'd been talking about these tattoos for years, and now Eddie was finally old enough to _get one_ without his mother's permission, so they wanted it done as soon as possible. They made their appointment two days after they got to California, all seven of them sitting in Eddie and Richie's dorm and trying to stay quiet on the phone with barely contained energy and violent shushing of each other while Stan talked. Even though they were booked on Eddie's actual birthday, they managed, somehow, to get in the next day, and once Eddie didn't have the distraction of his friends around him, he was going to start counting down the moments until the needle hit his skin.

"Where are you getting yours, Eddie?" Ben asked him, setting his root beer down on the table.  
  
"Either on my, like, right here," Eddie replied, rubbing over the space below his collarbone but over his heart, "or my shoulder blade."  
  
Ben nodded and smiled, all supportive like he always was because he was _Ben_ , "Richie?"  
  
"You all can chicken out on the ass thing, but when me and Beverly are baring it all and getting ass tats!"  
  
"Fuck yeah!" Beverly chanted, high fiving Richie so hard he fell back against Eddie again.  
  
Eddie rolled his eyes but didn't argue, because then it would bring up the whole fucking conversation they already had about Richie getting the tattoo on his fucking hip bone, which, in theory, seemed totally tame, but in actuality Eddie knew he would never be able to handle it. Like, fine, fuck it, whatever. He didn't control Richie in, like, any sense, but Eddie already told him that if he got it on his hip bone Richie would never be able to wear pants again or take his pants off ever. His hips were already a thing for Eddie; he was constantly putting his hands on them and running his mouth all over them whenever Eddie remembered he could; it would take that to a whole new level if Richie had a tattoo symbolizing all of their eternal fucking bond with one another tattooed on one of them forever.  
  
"I'll simply just have to get new friends," Mike informed them, shrugging at the inevitable. "I will _simply_ have to find better assholes to become acquainted with."  
  
Richie rolled his eyes as a lady came back with their food. "Yeah, right, Mikey. You're stuck with our tattooed asses until the day we all go into our group tomb."  
  
Beverly slapped his shoulder as she heard what he said, spitting out the piece of chopstick wrapper that she tore off with her teeth. "Group tomb! Yeah!"  
  
"We can be buried in the house," Bill added, eyes lighting up at the idea before Ben argued:  
  
"There is no cemetery in the blueprints." He accepted his plate and nodded at the lady to thank her. "And I'm not putting one in. There will be no group tomb on the family house."  
  
Eddie smiled as his chicken and broccoli were placed in front of him. "Dude, we only have to be buried if we actually _die_. We're never doing that."  
  
Richie smiled and kissed the side of his head again. "Course not. 'S called a fucking _birth_ day, dude."  
  
"It's your birthday?" The waitress asked, her face brightening. No fucking way.  
  
"Oh, n--"  
  
"Yes it is, ma'am!" Richie yelled _right over him_ , like a **dick** ** _._ ** "Big one-eight today, he is! And we're so _proud!_ " He pulled Eddie, who was trying to keep himself from killing Richie with his bare hands, under his arm and gave him a nougie, his knuckles brushing against Eddie's _perfectly fucking coiffed_ hair and **ruining it**.  
  
"Happy birthday!" She congratulated, before walking away, too much fucking pep in her step if you asked Eddie.  
  
"They're 100% bringing out free dessert," Richie mumbled as he watched her walk away. Eddie groaned as the woman went over to a group of workers who were bussing tables and they all turned to look at them. God _dammit_.  
  
\---  
  
Eddie stumbled as they walked home, Richie's hands in both of Eddie's front pockets as he plastered himself to Eddie's back, waddling on either side of his legs so they didn't trip. There was literally no reason for them to be doing this, they weren't sharing the sidewalk with anyone anymore, since everyone parted ways once they got to their respective buildings, but Richie had wedged his chin (and half of his face) between Eddie's jaw and his shoulder, and Eddie enjoyed his presence too much to shake him off.  
  
"Let's talk about _sex_ ba- _by_ , let's talk about y _o_ ** _u_** a _n_ d _mE_ ," Richie sang in his ear, leaning as far back as he could while still elbow fucking deep in Eddie's pockets, "LET'S TALK ABOUT _ALL THE GOOD THINGS--_ "  
  
"Shut! _Up!_ " Eddie yelled, laughing, stopping abruptly so Richie ran into him, surprising him enough that he stopped singing and knocked his chin into the back of Eddie's head. "What _about_ it?"  
  
Richie returned to where he'd been burrowed on Eddie's shoulder. "Oh, I don't know."  
  
"Then why were you _singing_ it, asshole?!"  
  
"Cause it's a good fucking song, _asshole_ !" Richie mocked. He kicked the back of Eddie's shoe lightly so he'd keep walking, shrugging once he did. "I was thinking about what other people usually do on their birthdays, and that whole album is a fucking _banger_ , so that's just what came into my head." He pulled his hands out of Eddie's jeans and hugged him around the middle. "Plus, it's, like, one of _our_ first birthdays as, like, a _couple_." He grimaced. "I don't like being a 'couple', from now on we're calling it bros who kiss."  
  
"I'm not fucking calling us 'bros who kiss'," Eddie argued. "Also, what does it being the first one of our birthdays since we started dating have to do with _anything?_ "  
  
Richie untangled himself from Eddie as he sighed overdramatically, grabbing Eddie's hand as they neared their block. " _Because_ , dude! I'm your future _husband_. Like, we're getting older, and now that we're together, I'm gonna be like seventy-five and senile, but I'm still gonna be with _you_. And a _birthday_ is like, we're just climbing the ladder of our entire life we get to spend together, and you just went up a bar."  
  
Eddie bit the inside of his own cheek so he wouldn't smile like an idiot, stopping him from walking any further to kiss him on the street. The people at the restaurant gave him a bowl of ice cream, with a candle burning bright on top and the most enthusiastic rendition of 'Happy Birthday' Eddie had ever gotten, that Richie had stolen half of, and his lips were still sticky from it. His nose was cold from the brisk air, but it was them, and they were here, where they could kiss each other and not have to worry about anything.  
  
It was his eighteenth birthday. He got to turn eighteen in his dorm room across the country from the town he thought he'd die in, next to his best friend, who loved him back the same way Eddie loved him. He got to do that again next year, in the Loser apartment, and the year after that, forever. He got to live his whole life with his friends, and with Richie, and go to college, help kids in the way he needed when he was younger, maybe have kids of his own someday. He didn't know. He didn't need to know. He had everything he needed within reach, and that was the best birthday present he could ask for.  
  
"I get to get old with you," Eddie whispered, into Richie's mouth and then kissed him again. Richie stumbled as he almost fell against a bush, and Eddie pulled back so they could regain balance and actually maybe get home before they died fighting the USC shrubbery.  
  
"Yeah, sure," Richie told him, brushing off the back of his pants. "You say that now, but when I'm bald at twenty and I keep waking you up every morning because the gleam of my Mr. Clean head keeps blinding you with sunlight, then we'll see how eager you are to keep me."  
  
Eddie rolled his eyes. He could practically see it, however it played out. He could see Richie literally decrepit, with osteoporosis and dentures, because he liked to open too many bottle caps open with his teeth, and bald as the day before God made hair, with plaid shirts and suspenders and grandpa pants that went up to his ribcage, but didn't really fit, because he looked like he was made of fucking toothpicks with paper for skin, and Eddie would still be there next to him. They could get some rocking chairs in the Loser house, and set them out in front of the big bay windows Ben and Bill wanted, and just watch cars pass all day, and complain about what teenagers were wearing by then, call their grandkids and try not to pick favorites, even if they had them secretly.  
  
He could see Richie as one of those weird fuckers who didn't age, and who still looked a good sixty-eight even though he was eclipsing ninety, who could still move around like nothing had ever happened to him, and Eddie would be so exasperated at that point that he just let whatever happened happen, and Richie could box dye his hair black and be incredibly obvious about it, because he never would touch up his roots, and Eddie would still look at him like he was the best thing in the world, because he fucking _was_.  
  
"I can't just back out _now_ ," Eddie answered, going into their dorm building as Richie held the door. "I already tattooed my name on your ass when you were asleep. I wouldn't put you through having to explain that if I left."  
  
"On my ass?" Richie asked, offended. "You _know_ I wanted a tramp stamp. How could you do this to me?"  
  
Eddie laughed and shoved him into the stairwell. "Shut the fuck up."  
  
\---  
  
Eddie's heart flipped in his chest as Richie opened their dorm door for him. All of Richie's clothes, which he'd been throwing on his own bed and eventually on the floor on his side of the room, because they slept on Eddie's bed anyway, had been picked up and put in their hamper. The last box that neither of them had gotten around to unpacking was emptied, with Eddie's clothes that were in there placed in his wardrobe, and the pictures that were placed in the middle, so that the clothes could also work as padding once they ran out of newspapers, were on their desks. All of their pens and highlighters were also put back in the cups on Eddie's desk, and his books were stacked neatly on his shelf. The polaroid picture Bev took of them kissing after graduation was taped onto the shelf above Richie's desk. There was a pink cardboard box on Eddie's desk, along with another smaller, red one.  
  
"Is this why it took you so long to come down earlier?" Eddie asked, setting his bag down on Richie's (finally made) bed. He opened the pink box and laughed at the huge vanilla cupcake with blue icing inside, which had a plastic "Baby's 1st birthday" decoration in it. Richie came up to stand next to him and knocked their arms together.  
  
"Hell yeah. It wasn't supposed to take that long, but then when Stan came over to drop the boxes off, I couldn't find where he fucking put them, because I said in my dresser, but they weren't there, so I already had the room clean and I was _still_ running late, and I knew you were gonna be pissed at me, but I still wanted to make it special and everything for your birthday, so I was like fuck it, he can be mad at me for this--"  
  
"What if I was mad at you for the rest of the night?" Eddie asked, hysterical, trying really hard not to cry because this was almost disgustingly cheesy, but at the same time it was so fucking _sweet_ he could vomit. He turned around to face Richie. "W-What if I was so unbelievably pissed at you for making us late that I said I was sleeping at Beverly's?"  
  
Richie just shrugged, _casually_. Eddie was going to throttle him. "Bev knew what I was doing, and so did Stan, and Ben was in the room when I talked to Bev about it, so unless you planned to stay at your other boyfriend's house, or something--"  
  
"Shut up," Eddie laughed, pulling Richie by the shirt down to kiss him. "You turned our friends against me."  
  
Richie nodded. "It was what was necessary at the time. I couldn't have my baby mad at me on his own birthday."  
  
"Nng, don't call me that." Eddie hid his burning face in Richie's chest. "This is really gay, by the way. Like, extraordinary levels of gay activity there."  
  
Richie held the back of Eddie's head and chuckled. "You haven't even opened your _actual_ gift yet. I think you might kill me."  
  
"I might kill you anyway for the cupcake." He sighed and turned back around, grabbing the small red box from the desk. His hands were trembling as he popped it open, so surprised by what was inside, but at the same time feeling like an idiot because it was obvious.  
  
"Yeah," Eddie breathed, pulling out the black ring that matched Richie's, and clasping it tight between both of his hands.  
  
"Yeah? You like it?"  
  
"Yeah as in I'm gonna kill you." He opened his hands and looked at the ring again, feeling the smooth outside with his index finger and running his thumb along the inside. He stopped at a rough feeling, squinting as he saw words etched into the metal. "It's engraved?"  
  
"I was saving up for this, but had a little extra once I paid for the ring so I thought hey, why not" Richie tried to hold his laughter. "Did you read it?"  
  
Eddie squinted at it, then pulled it back and sighed from the depths of his fucking soul. "Richard."  
  
"Edward."  
  
"Does this lovely, beautiful ring say _'nice ass'_ on it?"  
  
"'Fraid so."  
  
He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I swear to god if I didn't love you so much and I wasn't so _blinded_ by emotion right now, you would be dead by now."  
  
"So, you _do_ like it."  
  
Eddie wiped his eyes and whipped around to hug Richie so hard it had to hurt. "Yeah, I like it. I love it, actually." He kissed the underside of Richie's jaw. "I love _you_. Thank you so much." Tears fell freely now, but he didn't try to stop them. There was no point, he needed a good ten minutes before he could feel any semblance of stability again.  
  
That was just the _thing_ about Richie! Eddie looked at him, and without even thinking about all the stellar qualities that make him _him_ , Eddie was already head over heels for his stupid face and the flat planes and sharp angles that any sort of shit could come out of mouth, and _did_ come out of his mouth, and Eddie wouldn't care, because he was so fucking beautiful that he couldn't change anything Eddie already felt for him.  
  
Then, and whether it was from him being attractive or just because he _was_ , he had to be the funniest person Eddie ever met. Like, the shit he said or did without thought, that Eddie could never come up with, surprised him so much sometimes that the joke didn't even always have to be funny, it was just not what he'd been expecting. He was crude but not cruel, and obnoxious in a way that may have bothered others, but not him. Eddie liked silence, but he would much rather prefer having Richie, loud and brash without care, than being alone, or being with Richie when he felt he had to be silent.  
  
Eddie and his friends had been through hell and back when they were barely teenagers, and they'd suffered through their fair share of trauma to show for that, but Richie. Richie was always a bright side. He had his bad days, especially when they were younger, and especially in this past year, where he would come over to Eddie's house in the middle of the night because, yeah, It was dead, but every time he closed his eyes, he was back in the sewers, and Pennywise wasn't dead when they were in the sewers. He had a panic attack the first time they'd said 'beep, beep, Richie' to him after It was dead, because he'd said that to him, and he didn't mean to bother them so much, and Eddie was so fucking _angry_ , because Richie, yeah, had bothered him a lot, but it was never in a way that made Eddie want him to _stop_.  
  
They would huddle together in Bill's living room, at four in the morning, wide awake, not able to sleep because it was too dark, too quiet, but the absence of noise didn't mean the absence of something there, lurking in the cover of the dark. And Eddie would wedge himself into the space between Richie and Bill, and touch their arms together, a luxury he could allow with two sleeping bags between them. He would press his arm against Richie, his whole body shaking, and pray to someone he wasn't entirely sure was there, that they would move on from this. He would stare at Richie when, _if,_ he fell asleep, and pray that he would die with this secret, that he would die without anybody knowing how he felt, even if he had to die just to keep it.  
  
Richie always tried not to show it when they were growing up, but he was one of the sappiest assholes on the planet. He would take time out of the day to listen to Ben read poetry to him, suggesting word changes or switching the rhymes so they sounded better, but never told anyone until Bill walked in on them one day and told Eddie about it later. He used to always meet up with Bill after he left speech therapy and to cheer him up when he was upset at not improving as much as he thought he should have been, and one time almost got into a fist fight with a kid making _awful_ jokes about Stan being Jewish, and actually screamed at a girl in their eleventh grade class for spreading a rumor that they were all sleeping with Beverly, and this was just one time things that Eddie could think of off the top of his head. Through everything, Richie always fought for them, and he always went out of his way to make them all know he loved them.  
  
Eddie just. He _thought about it_ a lot, all the time, about how much Richie loved them all and how much he constantly showed that, with every fucking cell in his body. And with Eddie, it was like. He'd wanted to do all of this for so long, that now that he was able to, he just increased it tenfold, and Eddie _loved it_. He was so lucky to get to be Richie's friend at all, to be one of the kids that didn't immediately turn away from his immense amount of energy, and to be able to be loved like that. Through actions, words, literally any way Richie could, he always made Eddie know he was loved and always made sure he felt it.  
  
"I wanted to leave that cinnamon candle you liked burning," Richie told him, smiling when Eddie started crying _harder_. "But I knew you would either kick my ass for almost burning down the dorm, or we'd come home and it would already be burning."  
  
"Yeah, that makes sense," Eddie mumbled dumbly and slid his ring on his finger. "Where were you keeping this?"  
  
Richie pulled away and kissed his forehead. "I asked Stan to hold it for me so you wouldn't find it, and then I gave him the cupcake yesterday for him to hide in his and Mike's fridge behind all their fucking vitamin water."  
  
"Then what was Beverly here for?" Eddie asked, wiping his soaking wet face with his shirt sleeve. Richie lit _up_ , going over to the bottom drawer of their dresser and pulling out a huge gallon ziploc bag with two joints in it, which looked tiny compared to the enormity of the bag.  
  
"I am not smoking a whole joint," Eddie told him, taking his shirt off and throwing it in their hamper. Tomorrow before their appointment at the tattoo parlor, they were going to have to do laundry. "I might not ever actually be _low_ again if I get that high."  
  
"Boo, bad joke," Richie whispered as he slid open the bag. "And I didn't actually--I had the weed already, but I gave it to Bev to roll, because how the fuck would I do that without you finding out--it was hard enough measuring your finger for the ring while you slept."  
  
"You stole my idea!"  
  
"It had to be a _surprise_." Richie rummaged around in the top drawer, pulling out a lighter and the ashtray Bev made him for his birthday in high school. "But I guess I had enough for two, I don't know. I didn't really look that close to see how _much_ I had, just passed it on to her and let her do her thing."  
  
Eddie hummed and climbed on their bed, not getting under the covers yet as he watched Richie set everything down on the table to take his pants and shirt off. He rolled onto the bed and wrapped an arm around Eddie, pulling him close. Eddie felt the warmth of Richie's skin on the side of his face, basking in the comfort that inherently came with being held like this.  
  
"You good?" Richie asked, bringing Eddie out of his thoughts and laughing as Eddie's eyelashes fluttered against his chest. He hadn't even noticed that he closed his eyes. "You wanna go to sleep instead?"  
  
"You wish," Eddie mumbled, shaking his head as he sat up against the cool cinder block wall his bed leaned against. Richie did the same, pushing both of his hands into the mattress and lifting himself up to sit against the headboard. Eddie hummed a song he didn't take the time to recognize as he unfolds his legs on top of Richie's. Richie curled his hand around Eddie's ankle and squeezed before letting go and grabbing the huge ziploc bag. Eddie watched with rapt fascination as Richie's long fingers pinched one joint between his middle and ring fingers and pulled it into the palm of his hands and out of the bag.  
  
"Which Eddie are we gonna get this time? Horny High Eddie or Sentimental Eddie?" He made eye contact with him as he put the joint between his lips and lit it, breathing in deep and passing it to Eddie, who took it without thinking, instead watching the seductive curls of smoke float upwards from Richie's lips before it dissipated.  
  
"Not sure yet," Eddie answered, lying through his teeth as he inhaled, the familiar smoky feeling burning his throat. "Is that the only reason you wanted to smoke with me?" He joked, nudging Richie's legs with his own.  
  
Richie laughed. "Yeah, totally." He blew smoke at Eddie's face, because he knew Eddie hated it, dodging Eddie's hand when he swatted at him. "No. 'S cause you're the most high strung kid I know, and you always get all noodly when you're high. Plus, Horny High Eddie didn't reveal himself to me until August. I barely know that kid."  
  
"How would I have shown you that earlier? Crawl to you in my weed-induced haze and ask you to fuck me? In front of Stan? _No_. He’d _die_. Had to save that." He straightened up his spine so his neck laid flat against the wall, sighing at the cool feeling of it. "Plus, we couldn't smoke at my mom's, so there was never a chance for us to actually be alone and do it except for that one time at Mike's."  
  
Richie choked on his exhale as he started cackling. "I _forgot about that!_ I thought you were having an anxiety attack! You wouldn't even look at me!"  
  
"Because we were under the moon, fuckweed! And your hair was all curly and your eyes were huge and I _loved_ you. And you weren't ready for us to do anything! I wasn't gonna just ruin everything by saying you're too hot for me to comprehend right now and make you uncomfortable! I'm not a _monster_."  
  
Richie laughed and rested the joint on the edge of the ashtray, sliding his legs out from under Eddie's and going to kiss him. One part Eddie liked about being high was that time ceased to really exist, he thought, as Richie pulled back. They could have been kissing for a second, a minute, the sun could have risen and set all over again, and it would all be the same to Eddie. The world could have been overrun by zombies, California could have broken off from the American mantle and floated away into the Pacific Ocean, and all Eddie would notice is the floating feeling that came as a natural circumstance of kissing Richie.  
  
"You're _trying_ to make me crazy, aren't you?" Eddie questioned, reaching out for the joint when Richie went to hand it to him. "You have terrible intentions."  
  
"I do not!" He argued, sitting back against the headboard. "I have no intentions! To get high is my intention! I would _never_ try to do anything to _influence_ your emotions," he told Eddie, moving his hand and holding the back of Eddie's knee, grazing his thumb across Eddie's thigh. Like an _asshole_.  
  
Eddie exhaled, which turned into a laugh. "Uh-huh. Suuure."  
  
"God, you suck."  
  
Eddie licked over his teeth and stared at the shape of Richie's dick in his boxers. "Maybe."  
  
\---  
  
Either twenty minute or twenty seconds had passed since Eddie climbed on top of Richie, he didn't know. His lips were buzzing from kissing him for so long, and it was so fucking hot in their room for _no reason_ that Eddie was sweating, leaning back on his arms as his legs straddled Richie's waist.  
  
He swung his head back, staring upside-down at a photobooth strip of all eight of them piled into the picture, faces all squished together so they would fit into the frame that Eddie had taped to the side of his desk. "I love our friends, you know?"  
  
Richie hummed his assent and sat up, pulling Eddie's torso forward with two hands on his waist until Eddie was sitting up straight. Eddie laughed, the sound bubbling from his chest as Richie leaned back to the ashtray, placing the joint between his lips and taking a long drag from it. Eddie swallowed as he watched him, waiting for him to pull the joint away before ducking down to kiss him like Richie planned, inhaling the smoke as Richie breathed it out into his mouth. Eddie moaned in the back of his throat, somewhere between Sentimental and out of his mind Horny Eddie.  
  
"They're just such good _people_ ," he rambled once he breathed out again. "Like, Beverly is gonna be a famous fashion designer, Ben's gonna design _buildings_ ; he made us a _house--_ "  
  
"More like a fucking mansion," Richie corrected. "Did you see how many rooms he had planned for that thing?"  
  
"Right, true," Eddie agreed, "mansion. And he's gonna win fucking builder awards, whatever they're called--do architects build the things they design?"  
  
"Don't think so." He put the joint directly in Eddie's mouth and Eddie closed his eyes and inhaled. "Think, uhhh, contractors do that? Maybe, I don't know."  
  
"Don't care, I don't have to do shit except pay for it." He handed it back to Richie and put his hands on his shoulders, hanging off of him as he leaned backwards to stare at the ceiling again. "And Bill is gonna be a famous writer, Stan is gonna be, I don't know, accounting god? …I don't know anything about accounting."  
  
"Me either, Eds, me either."  
  
"He'll be fan _tastic_ at it. And you, _you_ ," Eddie muttered, running his hands along Richie's shoulders. "You're gonna be a fucking, a, uhhhh, _comedy man_."  
  
"Comedian."  
  
"Thank you, I forgot the word. I don't think my fucking brain is working right now."  
  
"Might not be."  
  
" _God_ , you're gonna sell out fucking _stadiums_ , Richie, you're so fucking funny, even when you don't mean to be. Can't wait for when you start getting gigs and shit, and you're gonna be _famous_ with your poster for your sold out show everywhere, and I'm gonna be front row at _all of them_." He squirmed in Richie's arms as Richie pressed his lips to his chest, kissing across his skin. "Well, maybe not _all_ of them, I'll be busy becoming a child person, _psychologist_. But after work, I'll leave my office and go to your shows. And you're gonna embarrass me in every fucking one, and I'm not gonna give a fuck because you'll be so happy and I'll be too busy helping all the children with their _issues_ , and they'll come up to me like, oh, _Tozier?_ Like the _comedian?_ And I'll be like yes, ma'am he's my _husband_ , and they'll be like--Are you _trying_ to make Horny Eddie come out or something?"  
  
Richie looked up at him, whites of his eyes only slightly pink, but his pupils were wide as he removed his mouth from Eddie's neck, nipping at his skin with his teeth. He put his hand back on the crown of Eddie's head and kissed him again.  
  
"You're high out of your fucking mind, and all you can talk about is how much you love our friends, and _me_. So, yeah, asshole, it's kind of doing it for me. I'm _human_."  
  
"Is it actually?" Eddie whispered, rocking his hips down and gasping with Richie as his cock twitched against him. "It _is_."  
  
"I _told you_." Richie let go of Eddie's head and snaked that arm back around Eddie's waist, sliding down underneath Eddie's waistband and resting it on his bare skin.  
  
Eddie smiled and kissed him, groan rumbling from low in his throat as Richie squeezed his ass. He broke away from him and pushed Richie back down on the bed, taking the joint, now almost burnt down to nothing, from the ashtray and taking another hit. He held the smoke in his mouth for a second before exhaling it into Richie's. Richie inhaled, grinning as Eddie bit his bottom lip before pulling back. He set his arms on either side of Richie's head and smiled at him, his heart beating heavy in his chest as the night passed by like it were wading through honey.  
  
"Richie?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
" _Fuck_ me."  
  
Richie kissed him again, licking the back of Eddie's teeth, something Eddie wouldn't have thought he'd like, but the feel of it sent a wave of adrenaline through Eddie's body. " _Y_ _eah_."  
  
\---  
  
Eddie scrunched up his face as the ice-cold smoothie froze every damn synapse in his brain while he walked down the long corridor to his room, and then immediately took another sip once the pain subsided. Being in school where anything he ate had no consequence of being found and held against him by his mother really led Eddie to make poor choices when it came to nutrition. He was still getting in his essential food groups, more by habit at this point than by effort, but at the same time they had a snack budget and Cheetos were so, _so_ cheap. He thought about maybe eliminating his portion of his and Richie's snack budget, but then Richie would buy the fucking crunchy Cheetos instead of the puffy ones, so Eddie knew his monetary contribution was incredibly important.  
  
He had an exam in three days he should study for, because he only completely understood, like, the first section of the unit of what they were doing, and the test was on the entire thing, so...Yes. He'll try to read it once he got in the room and got settled, but actually comprehending anything he read was up in God's hands. He unlocked his door and pushed inside, jumping as Richie sprang up when he entered the room.  
  
"Sorry! Sorry, did I wake you up?" Eddie whispered, not wanting to yell. Richie's art history class ended an hour before Eddie's Changing Family Forms class did, and so it wasn't uncommon for him to come home to see Richie dead asleep in either of their beds. It was a small habit of his Eddie often forgot, storming into the room without care and often shocking Richie awake and making Eddie feel guilty no matter how many times Richie said it was fine.  
  
"No," Richie sniffed, coughing to hide the noise. "I, uh, I wasn't asleep." Richie sounded like he was talking through a pillow, his nose was that stuffed.  
  
Eddie furrowed his eyebrows and put his hand on Richie's shoulder, trying to pull him to face forward, but he wouldn't budge. He curled further in on himself, shaking off Eddie's shoulder coldly. Eddie scoffed and stepped back, kicking off his shoes and undoing his belt so he could throw his jeans on the floor and climb onto Richie's bed next to him. He flinched when his legs scraped against Richie's jeans, another red flag, as Richie was vehemently _against_ wearing jeans in bed. Or, just, pants in general. They'd probably had about thirty conversations about it since middle school. It was a staple of his personality, at that point.  
  
"What's wrong?" Eddie asked, pulling Richie's hair back behind his ears to kiss the side of his face.  
  
Richie sniffed again and Eddie saw him blink rapidly, long eyelashes batting in and out of Eddie's view. Richie turned over then, face red and shiny, tears still dripping across his face. His glasses were nowhere to be seen, and his eyes were clear and glistening with tears that fell down his face, leaving wide tear tracks, which Richie ignored. He struggled to regulate his voice, forcing a smile as he said, "Nothing! I'm fine."  
  
Eddie just stared at him. "Do you think I'm blind? I am not the blind one in this relationship, Richard. Are you taking me for a blind man?"  
  
Richie squeezed his eyes shut as his body went stiff, trying to suppress the sobs that shook the bed, his eyes fluttering back open once they stopped. "So this isn't gonna work?"  
  
"You pretending to be fine even though you're sobbing? No, not gonna work. Sorry, honey."  
  
Richie dragged his arm across his forehead. Richie _was_ one of those weird people who sweat a lot when they cried, and Eddie knew not to make fun of him for it right now. "You can't call me honey if I'm already crying. That's against the rules."  
  
"So is you being all sad and not telling me, asshole. What's going on?" He smiled and brushed more tears away with his thumb, before frowning. "Is it your parents?"  
  
"No," Richie promised, covering Eddie's hand on the side of his face with his own, his bright red "V" tattoo on the heel of his thumb sending a bright feeling through his chest. He took Eddie's hand in his, running his finger over his ring and kissing him there. "Not that. I can't tell you what it's about, you'd punch me in the face."  
  
Eddie's heart plummeted, like the floor had been pulled out from underneath him on the top floor of the Sears Tower, and he was just falling and falling. He thought he might be sick, as he struggled to breathe, trying to find words but needing oxygen first. A million possible scenarios ran through his head, even the worst ones Richie would never do, like cheat on him, or kill somebody, or invite his mother over for dinner.  
  
"Why? Wh-What happened?" Eddie swallowed so hard it ached. "What's going on?"  
  
"It's nothing bad!" Richie reassured. "Not, like, terrible, it's just probably the most stuck up shit you've ever heard in your life." He sniffed quickly again. "And I'm minoring in _comedy_."  
  
Eddie laughed and kissed Richie's forehead. "I thought you were gonna say that, like, you killed someone or something. You scared me!" He pushed Richie's shoulder but hooked his arm through Richie's crossed ones "Now _tell me_. If you want, but you don't really have a choice."  
  
Richie chuckled and laid on his back. "You promise not to punch me in the face for how fucking dumb this sounds?"  
  
"What do you take me for? You always sound dumb." He laid on his back too and struggled to stay on the bed with how little space he had. "Go on, say it."  
  
He sighed deeply and pinched the fabric of his shirt, which was a nice green that brought out Richie's eyes, Eddie thought, as Richie wrapped it around his finger for something to do with his hands. "College is _hard_."  
  
Eddie nodded and snorted. "No shit. I thought you were doing okay with all of the schedules and everything?"  
  
"Yeah, but like, that's not what I mean, really? I don't know."  
  
"Explain it to me, then. I'm literally laying here to listen to you. We don't have any other classes today, so you don't have to rush it all out at once, I can wait." He paused before adding, "but everyone is coming here to study later, so if you haven't said everything by, like, six, then we can just talk in the bathroom while they sit in here."  
  
"Thanks, Eds," Richie grinned. "It's just, like, at school I didn't have to try that hard to do anything, because it was...kind of easy. It wasn't hard to pass, because every teacher hated their job and didn't want to be there, except, like, a couple of the good ones, not that I could blame them, they were teaching in _Derry_ , but, yeah, _easy_. Not to be, like, a dick, though. I know classes were _hard_ , and you fucking hated trig--"  
  
"Because trig fucking sucks."  
  
"Fair--"  
  
"But, I get it, you don't have to try and not be rude. You're smart, don't fucking try and backpedal for my account."  
  
"Thanks." He squeezed his eyes shut, and Eddie smiled that he'd stopped crying. Tears _were_ still falling, but not as quickly. "But, like, I was so 'smart' at home, but everyone here is like that. It's hard as _fuck_ to get in here, dude, and everyone here seems to already know who the fuck they are and what the fuck they're doing and _exactly_ how smart they are, and that that amount of smart is more than I've got." He huffed and groaned, long from his chest, flopping around on the bed. "And everyone here is so openly gay! Like, I thought I was being a bold bitch for holding your hand in public!  
  
"For my earthquake class, I had to do an icebreaker and we got paired up, which kind of defeats the whole point of an _icebreaker_ , like it's more of an ice fishing situation where you cut a hole in the ice, but whatever I didn't argue, but I got paired up with this guy named _Jude,_ so, already better than plain old Richard, and I was like 'hey', and he goes 'so, do you wanna do me first?' And I was coming off a, like, three hour nap, and just _barely_ made it to class on time, so he asked me that and I swear to fuck, I almost threw the fuck up right on him."  
  
"Shut up," Eddie breathed, covering his mouth so he didn't laugh in Richie's face.  
  
"No, no, but then he goes 'I meant the icebreaker...At least, for now', AND THEN HE WINKED AT ME. WHO DOES THAT?" He slapped his hands over his eyes. "Everyone here is immediately cooler than my dumb ass, and I'm not handling it well."  
  
"...Who _was_ this guy?" Eddie asked. "I need to meet him immediately."  
  
Richie swatted Eddie in the chest. "Relax, baby. He said he wasn't into lanky guys."  
  
"Not like--okay," Eddie muttered, wrapping his arms around Richie. He didn't mean it like _that_...but, also, didn't he though? He's only been dating Richie for four months, which sounded crazy when he thought about how little time it had been, but he felt like he hadn't yet made it known, enough, to the world that Richie was with him _only_ , and that it was always going to be that way no matter what.  
  
"Everyone here is just so confident and smart and hot. Everyone here is hot! And I don't even mean, like I want to fuck them hot, I mean like, everyone here looks like a supermodel or a sexy hippie and I'm. I can't _compete_." He closed his eyes and breathed deep through his nose. "I'm not special anymore." He whined, trying to joke, but it came out _wrong_. Heavy, broken, from a place so deep in his chest Eddie was sure he had never known it, if he had ever met this part of Richie before. "I was special. In school. I was top of our class, and I-I had _parents_ , and--" His face crumpled and he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes until it looked painful, gasping like he was drowning and dissolving into sobs again. "This is so embarrassing and fucking _stupid_ , I'm sorry, Eddie."  
  
"Hey!" He wiggled around to nudge Richie without having to move. "It's not stupid! And you don't have to be embarrassed. I love you, you _dick_." He sighed, his heart aching for Richie, desperately wanting him to _know_ how much he was cared for. "I know nobody can replace your parents, but you _are_ fucking special. You're the most important person in the world to me." Eddie leaned up to brush Richie's hair away from his face, tears welling in his eyes as he watched Richie struggle to hold back his own. Eddie kissed the corner of his mouth.  
  
"I know I'm, like. I know you guys like me! I know I matter to you all--"  
  
He tightened his grip on Richie's face. "A fucking lot. You matter a lot."  
  
"That's why this is dumb!"  
  
"But _you're_ not," Eddie assured him. "You're not."  
  
Richie squeezed Eddie, more tears slipping down his stupid, beautiful face. "I know..I love you." He sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve, but Eddie didn't say anything. "How was class?"  
  
Eddie sighed, knowing now that Richie had gotten all of his thoughts out there, he probably wouldn't bring it up again. "It was fine. I actually like this class, it's just gonna kick my _ass_ when finals come around."  
  
Richie nodded and rolled them around so he could get up, going up to his desk and picking up a stack of sticky notes. "Do you wanna go get food?" He asked, as Eddie stretched out his limbs on the bed.  
  
"Sure," Eddie groaned as his elbow popped, sitting up. "Did you make that appointment with that therapist you found?"  
  
"No. Did _you_ make that appointment with that _other_ therapist you found?"  
  
"No, not yet. She's not open on Monday's for some reason, so I have to wait to call until tomorrow."  
  
"'Kay," Richie said, throwing one sticky note away and reading the next. "I already studied today, so that's useless." He crumpled up the bright pink paper and threw it in the trash.  
  
"You did?" Eddie got up and put his shirt and jeans on. "When?"  
  
Richie opened his bag and took his wallet out, shoving it in his back pocket. "You woke me up when you left for class this morning, and Ben woke up Bev when _he_ left, so she called me and asked if I wanted to meet up for breakfast, and we both just took our whole bags instead of our wallets, and then we just, fuckin', pulled books out and started doing homework."  
  
"This is a fake story," Eddie accused. "You're lying to me."  
  
"I couldn't believe it either!" He grabbed his keys from his desk and led them out. "Maybe it all is gonna work it out."  
  
Eddie rolled his eyes as he shut and locked their door. "Maybe."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey y'all !! I already posted this in a different format, but i thought this one would make more sense and be more palatable to people since it will be broken up over more chapters, sorry to everyone who was reading but you will get regular updates of this fic MWF or tues/thurs alternating and i hope you enjoy!! 
> 
> chapter title from Arcade by That Kid 
> 
> tumblr: sunflowersocialist


	2. the stars that guide me towards salvation

Eddie's heart pounded in his chest as the orchestra swelled, pulse rising as a bunch of string instruments Eddie couldn't tell apart moved faster and the energy rose. He breath left him and melted into the piece, until he could no longer tell his own existence and the music apart. His hand twitched around Richie's, emotion filling his chest until he was sure it would come spilling out into his lap, pouring to the floor and and drowning the room, until the auditorium became and aquarium, and Eddie's body was a shipwrecked artifact in an ocean of faces baptized in their own destruction.

He felt like all of them were connected by one long line of energy, like the electricity he felt igniting his very core spread out through him, as his friends acted as the conduit for the full feeling nestled tight behind his sternum. He dug his fingers into the sides of Richie's palms without meaning to, eyes so wide the cold air made it hurt when he forgot to blink. There was something visually beautiful about this as well, but he didn't know _why_.

The Women in Orchestra event had been Beverly's idea, but Eddie spared no time in matching her enthusiasm. Sonia never thought music was a good career choice, because brass could poison you _somehow_ and gave you calluses on your lips that could get infected, and you could sever a finger on a string instrument, and you couldn't have asthma and play a woodwind, but Eddie's deep admiration for classical music still grew despite Sonia's suppression of it. Gospel music was the only way for her, because organists took 'great risks' to play an instrument that could crush them just for the sake of God, and that was to be admired and celebrated. Plus, Eddie, singing to God counts as praying twice, from your voice and your heart.

He looked down at the long line of his friends, all holding hands because they respected a fucking _metal_ piece of music when they heard one, and grinned. Bill, who sat on the other side of him, last in the row because he was moping around about Audra already having made plans with her fellow theater majors too much to actually match pace with the rest of them, sat at the very end. His eyes were gently shut, head tipped back as the violinist went _hard_ into her solo, the muscles in his face moving minutely as he experienced it for the first time.

"Should I take up the flute?" Richie whispered in Eddie's ear, which almost made him burst out laughing in the middle of a silent crowd.

"Absolutely _not_. I'd kill myself and then you."

Richie shrugged. "That's fair."

\---

Eddie could murder Richie right now without losing so much as a wink of sleep, he thought, as he watched Richie talk to a woman with a, frankly, _huge_ saxophone in her hands, putting on his grossly charming smile and bright stupid eyes and asking all sorts of questions he'd probably had prepared the moment Bev pitched the idea to them. Stan was nodding along and adding comments into a conversation between him, a flautist, and another woman, cool as a cucumber where Bev, on the other hand, was blushing to her roots as she shyly asked a woman, who was kind of stunning, about her...violin? Viola? Fiddle? Eddie had no idea. It looked like one of those, but not a cello. Because Eddie knew those were the big fat ones you had to sit down to play. She looked like she was about to cry and pass out at the same time. 

"Does Bev play violin?" Eddie asked Ben, who stood next to him, watching Bev with a solemn expression on his face Eddie didn't know the cause of.

"She used to," Ben told him, "before her mom died."

Eddie nodded, trying to wrap his mind around what he would never be able to comprehend. Bev's mom had already passed by the time Eddie met her, so he wasn't even able to view her version of grief in an attempt to picture how that must feel. He was young when his father died, and the memories he had of him were there. He remembered being sick himself, but they were all detached statements, memories, the really nice woman at the reception desk, beeping of hospital machines. The nurse who tried to get him to eat lunch every day. 

It was like his father was a ghost before he even died, always passing through Eddie's memories without ever taking any sort of solid form. Beverly had things with her mother, memories, an entire relationship that went beyond just childhood abstracts. Eddie couldn't even narrow it down, try to pick apart even one piece of what that must feel like in order to make it easier to grasp. To have a parent and to know them, to love them, and be loved in return in a way you understood, Eddie couldn't picture the strain it would be to lose a parent like that.

Ben continued over the sound of Eddie clearing his throat, "She was apparently really good, she showed me, like, medals and stuff. But then, y'know, with her dad and everything…"

"I get it." Eddie's eyes widened as Ben clenched his fists, but knew exactly how he felt.

If they'd been less lenient, if they had decided not to just bury their pasts and build on them, and instead sought out the people that hurt them, and given them exactly what they had earned, Beverly's dad would be buried somewhere remote. Somewhere unmarked, without even a pine box letting him take up more space than he already had. That, if there was some religion in which the dead could feel what happened to their bodies after they passed, and that faith was the one they lived under, he could understand what it felt like to be preyed upon without your consent. Eddie wasn't even glad they didn't do it. There would be no moral consequence, for him, if they had. If anything, their only roadblock was the possibility of them getting caught and having to stay in Derry instead of leaving.

"I was allowed to tell you that," Ben told him, clearing his throat. "I asked her before we came here, and she said yes."

Eddie nodded and leaned into him. "Good. Don't you want to talk to anyone here? It kinda seems like this would be right up your alley...Art and everything." He tried to ignore his face heating up at his own awkwardness, trying to make light conversation with one of his best friends like he didn't know him. He felt weird talking after having been silent for the entire past hour.

Ben laughed and shrugged, not commenting on Eddie's behavior. "I'm more of a written art guy than an auditory person...I think is how I want to describe that. Not saying that I'm an _artist_ \--"

"Shut the fuck up," Eddie interrupted, smiling as pride welled in his chest. "You're amazing. If you weren't designing a house for us, I'd push you into an English major. Or whatever the fuck Bill is doing." Eddie laughed as Ben threw an arm around his shoulder and pulled him to his side. Track slimmed Ben down a bit, but not so much so that he was as hard as the bony fucks Richie and Bill were. If Eddie didn't love Richie so much, Ben would be his cuddle partner of choice.

"Thanks, Eddie. But, no. I like the idea of...of putting something out there to be _viewed_ that serves a _purpose_ , like...beyond just its artistic part. I love art no matter how it's presented, but designing _buildings_ , which can--! They can be so many different things. Art studios, galleries, a library for Mike to work in--"

" _Don't_ give him any ideas. He **will** take you up on the offer."

Ben snorted. "But you get it, right?"

"Yeah, of course. You can design art that can house art--"

"And houses can house _artists_ , obviously, if I wanna stay in the houses part of architecture, and hold families that raise kids who are just--! _Powerhouses_ of creativity, like I could design a museum! I could do anything. Anything can be anything!"

Bill and Mike came back from the bathroom then, joining Eddie and Ben from where they posted themselves on the side of the room.

"You okay, Ben buddy?" Mike asked, putting an arm around his shoulder. They probably looked like such dicks, Eddie thought, all of them sitting there with their arms around each other like they were waiting for a picture to be taken of them.

"Huh? Yeah! Yeah, got into it for a minute, sorry." He sighed and leaned his head against Eddie's. "My _point_ was that, uhm--"

"You're a visual art guy not auditory, but you're here because…" Eddie reminded him, spinning his hands to get him to keep talking. Ben hummed as his train of thought went back on track.

"Oh, yeah: I'm here because, yeah, I'm not particularly gifted in this field, but it's _art_ , it's beautiful, and Bev is...she's art too."

"How many more times are you gonna say the word art in this conversation?" Eddie jeered, laughing when Ben shoved him.

"Shut up, but she _is_. She's not just visual, her voice alone makes me _cry_ , and the things she has to say, they're all beautiful, I just--" he pulled back from everyone's arms and linked his hands together to show them. "I feel like, sometimes, it looks like Bev is the main one in our relationship, and I just revolve around her--"

"No it doesn't!" Eddie argued at the same time Mike interrupted with, "It does not!"

"Thanks, guys, and you're right, it's _not_. We're **_co_** ** _nnected._** She highlights my whole world, and I'm--I do the same for her, and so all art is more beautiful with her around. She's here for design, which is visual, but she has such a _love_ for music, even if it _sucks_ \--"

Bill _guffawed_. "You have _no room_ to insult _anybody's_ music taste, Mr. Hans--"

"And I can live up to that!" Ben spoke over him, ignoring his comment entirely to talk about Beverly, his _muse_ , even if he said that word was pretentious. "She has all this energy, and even if it seems like I can't keep up, I can! I'm here because even though it's not _entirely_ my thing, even if I really do still like music, Bev makes it all so much better that it almost...highlights my appreciation for this, and also I like enjoying the things she loves with her. It makes it more special." He paused. "Eddie, what did you originally ask me?"

Eddie shook his head. "No idea. Not even a clue."

"...It's fine, I love Bev a lot."

"We know, buddy."

"She's really fucking cool!" Ben exclaimed, too loudly for the quiet of the room. "And I like learning new things about her! Because every time I'm like I don't know everything about you, because obviously I never could, but I know so much that whatever new thing you tell me wouldn't be surprising, she surprises me! Every time." He sighed with, just, utter despair, from the bottom of his soul. "God, I can't wait to be her husband."

"That's really gay, man," Mike muttered, dabbing at the corner of his eye for dramatics, because he was an asshole like that.

"You're just jealous because Stan is an accounting major and not a badass design major like Beverly," Bill argued, shoving at his shoulder.

"Implying that Stan isn't--listen." Mike gestured over to where Stan was standing. His whole demeanor changed, eyes wide, smile playing on his face like he didn't know what Stan looked like until he looked at him. Stan glanced over at them, a flash of confusion over his face before correcting and turning back to the two other women. "I understand how you could think he's _boring_ \--"

"He didn't own a T-shirt until he was fifteen years old," Bill pointed out.

"Bird scientist was his backup career," Ben added.

"He once read the dictionary for fun in the fourth grade," Eddie piled on. "Then said it was his favorite book until he read _1984_ , because there was 'so much to learn in it'."

Mike smiled to himself in a way that just _screamed_ about how much he actually loved those things about Stan, which, _cute_. Disgusting and _boring_ , but cute. "Yes! I understand! But I love him for all of those things, and because they just prove that I made the right choice. I just. _Wow_. Why are we still _here?_ " Mike asked. "It's late as shit. I wanna go home and eat chips then go to sleep. With Stan, because I love him."

Eddie beamed over at him across Ben's front. Another development since Derry was Mike and Stan's actual willingness to admit they were dating each other. They never formally told the rest of the Losers, but they didn't have to. They were masters of getting what they wanted to get across without having to necessarily _push it_ across, and instead using implications and strategic touches and glances to illustrate 'WE ARE NOT DOING THIS BECAUSE WE ARE ONLY GOOD FRIENDS.' Now that they were _here_ , though, they were much more blatant. Eddie had seen them kiss, like _twice_ in the two months they were here, which was way more than that astounding _one_ he'd seen in Derry, because that one came with them getting kicked out of Stan's house after commenting on it and embarrassing him.

"And you called _me_ gay," Ben muttered as Stan came back to the group. Eddie looked and saw the woman separating her flute pieces, or whatever they were called, and setting them in the case. Mike took Stan's hand in his, gently, the moment he was close enough. He barely 

"Wanna go home?" Stan asked, grazing his thumb across the back of Mike's hand.

"Thought you'd never ask."

Eddie watched them walk out, gagging with Ben and Bill as they went. Before he could even look back, Richie all but slammed into him and pushed him into the wall, his toothpick body smothering Eddie against the tile. Eddie yelped at the impact, as every bone in his body merged and he became Flat fucking Stanley.

"Woah! Sorry, Eds.” He pulled what remained of Eddie's body off of the wall and into his arms. "I thought you saw me coming and braced or something." He kissed his hair and smiled so wide Eddie could feel it, an anxious chill already sweeping over his body. "That lady said if I wanted she could get in contact with someone local to give me sax lessons. Isn't that fucking cool?"

Eddie looked up at him and waited for the joke. "If you're serious, then fine, I'll deal with it, but if you're joking right now, I'm going to rip your dick off."

Richie laughed. "You like my dick too much for that. Let's go home."

Eddie rolled his eyes, but turned around and led Richie out with his hands on his shoulders, much to the amusement of Ben and Bill, who were making smooching noises as they left. Assholes, every single one of them. Eddie loved it.

\---

Eddie thought about what Ben said for a good two hours after they left, but waited until the _moment_ Richie fell asleep to allow his mouth to ask, way too loudly for midnight, the question he wanted. Richie usually had trouble sleeping, when his brain decided to keep going after hours and fuck over Richie’s body as a result, so when he actually got tired, it usually meant his brain was too. Which meant honesty, and no energy to put effort into sparing Eddie’s feelings. A rude trick to play? Yes. Slightly concerning and taking advantage of his own boyfriend’s relaxed state? Of course. Was he going to do it anyway? Without hesitation.

Eddie studies Richie’s features, smiling to himself at the milk mustache he had from their earlier McDonald's run once they left the music program. _Why_ Richie got milk at McDonald's, Eddie didn't know nor did Richie explain, so he let it slide with minimal retching at him drinking milk. Humans weren't _supposed_ to drink milk past infancy, they'd just forced themselves to for so long that lactose intolerance wasn't a biological given anymore. Eddie hated the way it tasted anyway, like God _intended_ , Eddie exhaled silently, not wanting to disrupt the fatigue slowly blanketing Richie. He waited, and waited, until _finally_ Richie’s face went smoothed out and blank, clearing his throat before loudly asking: 

"Do you think I'm cool?" Eddie blurted, guilt twinging in his heart as Richie startled like he was being woken up from a nightmare, slowly looking around the room like he didn't know where he was. Seeming to get the information he wanted, his head dropped back onto the pillow, half of his face obscured by his hair. Eddie tangled their hands together, smiling as Richie brought them both to rest on his chest, curling his body instinctively around them. "Sorry."

"What did you just ask me?" Richie asked, hand over his heart as Eddie felt it pounding.

"Do you think I'm cool?" He repeated, clearing his throat as he moved to hover Richie's face, staring in the dark pools of his eyes. His eyelashes were so long. "Ben was talking about Beverly today, y'know, rambling--"

"'F course."

"--And he kept saying how _awesome_ Beverly was and how much he loved her, and obviously I'm not trying to be Ben and Beverly, because they're gross--"

"We literally have promise rings and you have a kink for me calling you _baby_ , but please, continue."

Eddie pinched his nipple, hard. "Stop interrupting!"

Richie screamed and slapped his hand away. "You're such a _dick!_ "

"Do you think I'm cool or _not_ , fuckass?!"

"Dude, you iron your socks!" Richie argued. "I'm minoring in comedy! We are the least cool people on the planet!" Richie covered his assaulted nipple with his free hand as Eddie frowned. "I _like that!_ I don't want us to be a sweet, hot architect and his punk rock, balls of steel wife. I want us to be Richie and Eddie, two dicks whose combined IQ is a solid thirty-eight." He looked at his free hand like he was inspecting it for blood; Eddie rolled his eyes. "Can we go back to sleep now, or do you wanna keep watching me fall asleep like a perv, only to wake me up with a dumbass question that has a dumbass answer until one of us dies?"

Eddie scoffed and pulled his pillow out from underneath his head, slamming it on Richie's face. "Shut the fuck up. You can go to sleep and meet God, asshole."

Richie grumbled from his own suffocation before Eddie stole his pillow back and settled in to sleep. "God wouldn't treat me like this."

"Mm, yeah, go and prove it. I dare you." Eddie rolled to face away from Richie, so he wouldn't see his red face and satisfied look, his heart weighing heavy in his chest, satisfied and happy.

" _Dick_ ," Richie repeated, wrapping his body around Eddie and kissing his shoulder. "Love you."

"Shut up, I'm trying to sleep." He waited for a moment until Richie was done laughing and shook his head to burrow further into the pillow and actually sleep. "I love you too."

\---

Eddie's mind raced in equal parts grossed out and curious ways, wondering in one part of his brain why his prof would assign _Lolita_ as a book for their class, and in another hoping that he would walk away with this not covered in the slimy feeling the book gave him and, instead, with an enlightened sense of knowledge. Hopefully. He just hoped that when he met up with his study group next Monday that everybody in the group was as awkward as he felt, and didn't get, like, _weirdly_ into it, and then Eddie would have to avoid eye contact with that person for the rest of the semester, year, or. just...until they stopped going to the same college.

He guessed it could help him, Eddie thought. Later on in his college career, when he was done with his Gen Eds and started taking classes better suited to his major, he could use Delores as a sort of patient zero? Or maybe that's what another class already has planned? It seems too good of an idea for somebody not to have had it first, Eddie thought, crashing into the corridor out of the stairwell and walking to his room.

Eddie's eyebrows furrowed as he heard The Monster Mash blaring from behind his dorm room door. He knew Richie's CD player would _not_ be able to handle music at this volume, and was entirely prepared for it to explode the moment he opened the door, only to be pleasantly surprised at the sight of Richie, Beverly, and Mike decorating the dorm for halloween, the song playing on Beverly's boombox.

"Hey, Eds!" Richie greeted, from where he was standing, bent at a ninety degree angle on their bed stringing orange Christmas lights along their window. Fire hazard. "Stan and Bill are on their way. Audra and Ben have class, which is--" He rolled his eyes and stuck his tongue out flat to signify how annoying they were for being too busy to join this monstrosity, as Mike taped the same string of lights along the ceiling of the whole room. Beverly, meanwhile, spread fake spider webs all over Richie's desk.

"Oh?" Eddie said as he dropped his bag onto Richie's bed, his usual spot of his desk chair taken by _piles_ of decorations. "That's nice, but...uhm...not that I don't _love_ this...but it's the _first_ of October. It's way too fucking early for this." He made eye contact with a red-eyed plastic skeleton sitting on his desk, staring at its bastardous little face before knocking it over.

"It's never too early to get ready for Halloween," Richie argued, jumping down from the bed to walk up to him. Eddie squawked as Richie grabbed the sides of his face and kissed him, pulling away just so Eddie could see him wiggling his eyebrows. "What're you dressing up as?"

Beverly jumped up and down, drawing Richie's attention away from Eddie's rolling eyes. She pulled the tape dispenser from her mouth that she was using to keep the webs in place. "That reminds me! I got invited to this frat party by a sorority girl whose roommate is our weed guy's roommate's girlfriend--"

"Wait, what?"

Beverly ignored Mike's question. "It's not for two weeks but it _is_ a Halloween party, and we are _all_ going. I expect to see costumes."

Eddie bit the inside of his cheek. Frat parties were intimidating all on their own, but a Halloween frat party added a whole new element. He was picturing a lot of douchebags in masks. And hazing. Maybe death. Probably alcohol poisoning. 

"Not sure if I'm ready for that." Eddie muttered, holding Richie's hips in his hand. Richie groaned and bucked up when Eddie accidentally pressed against the bite mark Eddie left there the night before. He hid it by pulling Eddie into his arms again and kissing his head, laughing into Eddie's hair like he was about to kill him.

"It'll be fine, Spaghetti," Richie grit out, grinding into Eddie's hips, to torture himself, Eddie had to guess, before pulling back. "We can just leave early if you hate it." He pulled back to look at Eddie, eyes wild. "Or we could do acid and go fucking _crazy_."

Eddie stared at him. "Fine."

"To the acid?"

"I'll do it if you do," Eddie smiled, knowing Richie would ever only do acid if Eddie didn't, because he didn't trust them both to actually get home safely if they were both tripping at the same time. 

Richie twirled out of his hands and went back up on their bed, taking the tape dispenser from where he deposited it on their nightstand and ripping off pieces to stick to his arms as placeholders. "Do you and Ben know what you're going as yet, Bevvy, my dear?"

Beverly hummed with the tape back in her mouth. "Don'yno ye--, buh i go--a ee hah oh," she mumbled. Or that's what it sounded like to Eddie. Like a grandpa who didn't remember to put his teeth in.

"Hell yeah!" Richie agreed, not perturbed by Beverly's self inflicted speech impediment. "You and Haystack are gonna turn _out!_ What should me and Eddie do?"

"Slutty pizza delivery guy," Beverly answered, hesitating for a moment to try and find a match to that. "Slutty pizza."

Richie laughed, not paying attention as he took a step forward. Before Eddie could even blink, Richie stepped off of the bed, his heel skimming on the overhand and sending his body slamming into the wall and plopping down onto their bed. His mouth dropped open in pain, clutching gingerly to the back of his head. Beverly was stuttering between laughter, trying to ask if Richie was okay, while Mike struggled to take all of the webs off of his hands to help. Eddie's hands slapped over his mouth, staring in shock before his concern kicked in, rushing over to climb onto their bed and pull Richie's hands away to see if he'd been hurt beyond just a bruise.

"I'm fine, rel _ax_ ," Richie sighed, batting Eddie's hands away from his head. Eddie flicked him on the forehead, which Richie ignored, squirming down to rest his head in Eddie's lap and look up at him, a bright smile plastered on his face when Eddie carded his hands through his hair. He used that new conditioner, Eddie noticed, taking in the new softness he wasn't used to yet.

"What do you wanna go as?" Richie asked, taking Eddie's other hand in his own and resting them on his stomach. Distantly, Eddie saw Mike and Beverly become _incredibly_ interested in their respective tasks.

Eddie shrugged, ruffling Richie's hair. "I don't really care, as long as it's not _stupid_. You can come up with whatever, we don't even have to match if you don't want to, but _don't_ make me go as something dumb, like a dog, or whatever. I'll actually kill you and leave your body on the quad."

Richie kissed him, ignoring the gagging of Mike and Beverly as Bill and Stan walked in. "Fine, but you're still gonna hate whatever I end up choosing."

"Oh, I know, but it can't be any worse than anything I could come up with, with my head all full of _Lolita_ nightmares."

He grimaced at Eddie's words, knowing fully Eddie's struggles with his weird professor and this fucking book from his many after-class rants about it, and turned to Beverly. "When's the party?"

"The sixteenth," Beverly muttered, tape dispenser once again in her mouth.

"Perfect!"

Bill pulled the skeleton off of Eddie's desk and began waltzing with it. "What party?"

\---

Considering the amount of stress Eddie had contained in his heart, and considering Ben tried for a whole week to get him to join the track team in high school, the fact that Eddie was only _now_ taking up running as a hobby was kind of a testament to the strength of his stubbornness, but also disappointing because he could have been doing this shit since high school and maybe been a little less neurotic because of it. He had no time to worry about the things he didn't do, though, as a large part of his free time was now spent running.

He'd fallen in love with the feeling of the cool air filling his lungs, how his legs ache and his lungs get tired once he stops, how the repetitive motion lets his mind tune out and think about things while he explored parts of campus he hadn't gotten the chance to see yet.

He was usually alone when he went, because Ben always had practice with his team, and the others had practice at being lazy assholes, and so it was usually a good opportunity to sort through the piles of thoughts he had sitting around into organized sections that wouldn't send him to a mental breakdown later on. He met a girl on the route he liked to run along, which started and ended at the smoothie shop that Richie and Stan got him hooked on, that had been nice to get to know. She was a psych major, too, and didn't seem to mind the fact that Eddie could talk for at _least_ a full minute without breathing.

Another whole thing about taking up running was that Eddie realized just how much he could _sweat_. He liked the feeling of running, of stopping after and feeling the results of the distance you'd achieved, but he _hated_ sweat, and sweating, and his clothes sticky and plastered to his back. After he finished his run and got his self-congratulatory smoothie, he immediately went running again, up the stairs to their dorm to grab his shower caddy and go get clean. If anything about Eddie's life were normal, though, this would not be a problem, but--

" _Richie_ ," Eddie groaned, clapping his hands over his already warm face as Richie openly gaped at him like he was some weird, new creature he'd never seen before.

" _Baby_ ," Richie whispered back, throwing his book down on their bed and sliding off of the mattress onto his knees. He was wearing boxers with rubber ducks on them and nothing else, which somehow made him _more_ attractive than usual? But if Eddie spent time trying to understand his attraction to Richie--yeah he was gorgeous and the kindest person Eddie knew, but _understanding_ **why** Eddie found him so hot--he's not entirely sure he would enjoy what he found. Not only about himself, but about what...developments...that attraction would take once he understood it.

Eddie inhaled sharply through his nose. "I swear to god, Richie, do not touch me."

Richie rolled his eyes and ignored him, crawling over to Eddie just on his knees, and putting his hands on both of Eddie's thighs, resting his chin on Eddie's navel. He didn't even say anything, just looked up at him with dark eyes, big glasses making him look like a gerbil. A really hot gerbil? He was fucked up. Eddie clenched his jaw tight so that he wouldn't give in, and go shower like he _needed_ to, but he also knew it was a losing battle.

"I can see the vein in your forehead doing that thing," Richie said, grinning because he already knew Eddie was caving. "Just say what you want to say."

"Say what _I_ want to say? Say what you wanna _do_ , first, asshole." Eddie ran his hands through Richie's hair before tugging on it, smiling as Richie gasped when Eddie tipped his head back. "Convince me."

" _Shit_ , Eddie." He struggled not to smile up at him, to keep the _mood_ , like this wasn't all in his hands. Yeah, Richie was the one on his knees, Eddie was the one standing over him, but they both knew Richie was the composer of their piece. Eddie melted at the sight

Richie reached behind Eddie's back and unbuckled Eddie's fanny pack, which he wore every time he went running because it was _useful_ , much to Richie's protest. Eddie was about to protest, because he had alcohol in there and he didn't want it to open and spill all over, but Richie just tossed it gently on the bed behind him, knowing already how Eddie freaked out when his shit got thrown somewhere by someone other than him. Eddie felt the well of love he had for Richie fill a little more as he resisted the urge to shove his hips up against Richie's face. He pulled back from him to lean down to kiss Richie, pulling him to stand up before Richie pulled away and knelt back down, letting Eddie fall back to lean against Richie's bed. He tipped his head back to look at the ceiling as Richie ran his lips along the front of Eddie's running shorts, hands dropping to hold Eddie's knees. Eddie flinched as Richie's palm pressed on the skinned knee he'd gotten on his run earlier.

"Ow, fuck!"

"Sorry," Richie laughed, leaning back on the heels of his feet and holding Eddie's knee with both of his hands. "What happened there?"

Eddie sighed and fell back on his elbows. "Tripped earlier today, can we get back to--"

"A clear band-aid?" Richie asked, running his finger over the plastic, which, yes, Eddie found deplorable, but-- "Since when do you use clear band-aids? You think they look like nipple pasties."

"Who _are_ you?" Eddie asked. "Why do you know so much about my _band-aid_ preferences?"

Richie screwed up his face. "Dude, I was twelve and gay and homophobic against _myself_ , with a huge crush on you. Becoming obsessed with you was my way of coping."

"...Sure. And you, just, have all this information up there about me? For repression reasons?"

"It's--No. I have, like...it's all just stuck up there. Like I got the information and now it won't leave." He picked at the edge of Eddie's bandage until Eddie shook him so he didn't pull it all the way off. "Like, when we played the Newlywed Game at Bill's after the homecoming kids did it? And we drew names out of a hat and you got paired with Beverly--and on one hand, I was super fucking relieved because I knew, at that point, that I wouldn't be able to _not_ make myself sound super fucking creepy--but on the other hand, she didn't even know your favorite _song_."

"...What do _you_ think my favorite song is?"

"It _was_ One of Us by ABBA, but you'd tell everyone it was Dancing Queen just so people wouldn't ask you why it wasn't Dancing Queen."

"...I don't like that you know that. I never told you that."

Richie nudged Eddie's shorts with his nose, dangerously close to the sensitive skin of Eddie's inner thigh. "I tap into your brain while you sleep and suck all the information out." He went back to picking at the bandage.

Eddie shook him off again and kicked lightly at Richie's knees. "A girl I run with gave it to me, now stop _picking_ at it," Eddie groaned, pulling Richie up and kissing him, pinching the waistband of Richie's boxers and snapping them back onto his skin.

"Are you friends with her? Or do you just...see her, like, while you're out there?" He fumbled trying to get Eddie's shirt up, but eventually got his hands on Eddie's bare skin, grazing his sides and back gently in a way that drove Eddie mad.

His heart thumped against his chest as Eddie held Richie's upper arms, running his thumb over the beauty mark Richie has on his arm. "Does it matter?"

"No, but I like to know things about you…" He looked down at the floor, face red, but then looked back up. "Not in a weird way. I don't have to be homophobic to myself anymore."

Eddie rolled his eyes. "I know that. We're not friends. Not, like--We talk, I guess? But I'm not gonna, like, bring her to meet you guys or anything. Not yet, at least? I dunno. She runs when I'm running,and we just...make small talk...complain about classes, shit like that." He pushed Richie's hair back from his forehead. "We were supposed to be fucking by now."

"You only keep me around for sex," Richie mumbled, smiling, though Eddie could tell he had more on his mind. Before he could ask, though, the look cleared, and his eyes widened as he squeezed Eddie's sides. "Take your shirt off."

Eddie grinned and took his tank top off, another development that Richie told him he was _unable_ to handle, and threw it in the direction of their hamper as Richie went back down on his knees. He dug his fingers into Richie's hair and pushed Richie's head back until his chin was in line with the rest of his body. He wasn't even hard yet, but he knew it wouldn't take long.

"Richie?" Eddie asked, kindly, pulling his fingers from his hair and running them across his head.

Richie palmed Eddie's ass and pushed his hips closer to Richie's face. "Yes, Eddie, my love?"

"Con _vince_ me."

\---

Eddie sat in the big scoop chair in Mike and Stan's room, that they usually kept folded in their closet, but brought out for when they all got together, as he watched Richie pace the small expanse of the front of Stan and Mike's dorm. He called this 911 and then didn't tell anybody why, instead choosing to freak out once they all got there and not having said a word since. His hair was a mess from him constantly ruffling through it, his skin clammy and pale. 

"Are you alright?" Beverly asked, her whole body draped longways across Bill, Mike, and Ben, sitting up against Stan's side of his and Mike's conjoined bed. Bill was sitting up straight, with his legs sprawled on either side of the scoop chair, where Audra sat. Meanwhile, Stan sat against Mike's headboard, his legs pressed against where Mike and Ben's feet were, trying not to fall off of the mattress.

Richie pushed all his hair back in a way that would give him a receding hairline by thirty and sighed dramatically, then clapped his hands together so loudly that Eddie jumped. His sneakers had been squeaking across the dorm floor since everybody got there, and the silence brought by him stopping was almost jarring. The vanilla and eucalyptus candle Stan lit, against the warnings of their RA, did not seem to help his nerves.

"No, but now that I have you all here, an audience who can't run away--"

"You're not doing a comedy routine right now!" Stan called. "We banned you from calling 911's to tell jokes." He crossed his arms over his chest and huffed, but his expression softened. "Just tell us what's wrong."

Richie nodded and shoved his hands deep in his pockets. "Right. Uhh, I was... _wondering_... ugh. This sounds dumb!" 

Stan smiled gently. "Probably."

He cupped his hands around his glasses and pushed on his forehead, which was Richie-mannerism for slapping his hands over his eyes without touching his glasses. "Are we stopping each other from having other friends?" He yelled, as fast as he could so he could get it over and done with, then sat on the floor. "This is stupid, sorry."

"It's not," Mike assured him, nudging Beverly off of him as Eddie got up to sit next to Richie on the floor, then sitting on his other side. The rest of them joined around them, with Stan joining last once everyone else stopped climbing over him, wrapping his arms around Richie from behind and resting his head on the back of Richie's, as his shoulders were taken by Eddie and Mike. They really did all love him, even if he sometimes was too embarrassed to realize they loved him enough that nothing could, really, make them stop.

"Like, Audra has all these friends! And Eddie has a running friend--"

"She's not really my _friend_ , I don't talk to her outside of that one path, really."

" _Still_. I just...we spent so much time dreaming about what life would be like outside of Whackjob, Maine, and now we're out of there, and I feel like I'm basking in all the, like, not being in the place of our literally hell on earth, that I don't even focus on branching out. I'm _obsessed_ with us, and our progress, and how we change the longer we're out here, just, like, talking about it, a--and being ourselves for the first time in _literally_ ever, I don't even think about how my _oodles_ of affection for you guys could...be bad...and...is it? I don't want you guys to hate me in a few years when you realize you could've been so much better, have all of these opportunities, if it wasn't for me, just, being in the way with my...personality, or whatever…"

It felt like each word Richie said had to be typed into Eddie's brain manually, and then pushed together into sentences he could understand. None of that made any sense to him. How could...he couldn't even imagine a world where Richie didn't see just how much he meant to them, where he thought they kept him around just because they killed a weird dude together when they were thirteen, and not because his number one instinct was to love others without expecting anything in return, to make people laugh just so they'd be happy. How he thought that the privilege they'd been given, to be a part of the circle of Richie's friends, to be the small group of people Richie cared about...Eddie could kill him.

"Your personality is why we love you, asshole," Bev mumbled, holding his hand from where she sat in front of him. "It doesn't _matter_ that there's a billion fucking people here, they're not you."

Richie shifted, jostling Mike, Stan, and Eddie. "But, I don't wanna be so caught up in us staying together that we forget that, even if we live in separate houses, separate states, even, _countries_ , that we are still the Loser's Club. I don't want our current, like, semi-codependence to make you resent me in the future, and I don't wanna block you from finding other people. If you want them."

Eddie looked at the rest of his friends for a moment before telling them, "You can gag as much as you want, but I just--" and then kissing Richie full on the mouth, smiling as the others wretched in his ears. Richie kissed back, but not like he usually did, all asshole enthusiasm and trying to get Eddie to forget about the rest of the world. He kissed him like he was desperate, like he needed it or else he would drift away. "You're so _dumb_ sometimes. Of _course_ you're not stopping us from making friends!"

"Do _you_ turn down other people who want to hang out with you for _us?_ " Ben asked, hand on Richie's ankle. 

Richie but the inside of his cheek. " _No_ , but regardless, it's a _legitimate concern_."

"It’s a dumb concern is what it is," Bill argued, managing to sound sweet even when calling Richie our on his own stupidity. "We love you because we love you, not because you just...got in first...or whatever's going on in your huge bowling ball head."

Richie laughed. "Fuck off."

"And if you don't turn down people for us, then why would we?" Beverly asked, deciding that holding Richie's hand wasn't enough and getting up to hug him, breaking their circle, though none of them minded.

"And just because we have binding emotional trauma that adds to the love we have, doesn't mean we're your friends _only_ because of that," Bill added.

"That too!" She squeezed Richie harder. "We don't stay together because we've always known each other and we don't know how else to be."

"We choose each other," Stan explained, his whole face turned towards his furrowed eyebrows, his little concerned face Eddie thought made him look like his dad. "And, not to be gross, but, _Richie_ , we all choose you. We don't want any other person but you."

Richie scrunched his face up as he started crying, and Eddie's heart _shattered_. In an instant, they were all on him again, until he tipped over and they laid in a dog pile on the floor. Eddie buried his face in Richie's neck and inhaled the warmth of him, of home. He wanted to make a home with his friends, with _Richie_ , and no matter how many people he met and bonded with and became friends with, nobody was _ever_ going to change that.

"We love you, Rich," Mike mumbled into the pile, followed by a gaggle of echoes just to get their point across.

Eddie nodded. "You're our best friend."

Richie sniffed and Eddie felt his tears run onto his own hair, but he didn't mind. "I love you guys, too...Thanks."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from Africa by TOTO -- all chapter titles are lyrics of songs from [this playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0EuuOVEkpNNWo433QgFFkY?si=MaXBCv1USTWyV497TuCVlw) !! which I made for this fic series 
> 
> each chapter really will vary in length so I can't even say this is a shorter chapter, because it might be typical, but I hope you enjoyed!! comments are appreciated!! 
> 
> tumblr: sunflowersocialist


	3. chasing trouble for the rest of my days

"I don't get what I'm supposed to be!" Eddie called, facing the window and staring out at the spookily-decorated quad while Richie got dressed behind him for this stupid Halloween party that Eddie was half convinced he die at. A girl dressed as a witch walked by, laughing with someone dressed as a bumblebee. Eddie smiled, staring at his own reflection while pointedly ignoring Richie's, because 'that was against the rules', wondering when Richie ever had the time to rent a gray business suit in Eddie's size, and where the fuck he hid it for two weeks, considering Eddie was constantly in Richie's wardrobe, under the premise of getting towels but usually for stealing his clothes.

"It'll make sense when you _see it!_ " Richie told him, before Eddie heard several things clanging to the floor as he watched the silhouette of Richie fall to the floor. "Close your eyes!"

Eddie sighed and closed them, crossing his arms. He'd been waiting for, like, twenty minutes for Richie to get dressed, and five of those were them making out because Eddie apparently looked 'fucking _hot_ ' in his suit, which, sure, _whatever_. He wasn't complaining if it meant Richie kissed him like he couldn't breathe without it, his hands everywhere on Eddie's body, as though Eddie was saying goodbye before he went fucking overseas for a year. He listened to Richie hop around, struggling to zip something before standing, and then doing it again. He heard Richie snap something against his skin and then fix something scratchy, before Richie let out a loud breath and settled.

Richie could barely contain his laughter. "Okay, you can turn around now."

Now. Jesus fuck. Eddie could have guessed a million things as to what Richie would have chosen to go as. A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Gumby, literally he could have painted himself blue and gone as a Smurf, or literally anything fucking else other than _Vivian_ from fucking _Pretty Woman_.

Eddie swallowed his own tongue when he saw Richie, openly staring at him while he rummaged through his bag, which Eddie guessed he emptied just for the occasion. Altogether, he nailed the costume, the white and blue hourglass cutout dress pulled tight across his body, showing so much of his skin Eddie felt scandalized to even be looking at him. He must have shaved his legs, Eddie thought, staring at the bare skin of Richie's thighs where the dress ended high up and where his shiny black thigh high boots began. Even the wig, which Eddie hated in the movie but Richie thought was 'absolutely baller', was placed on top of his head. Eddie didn't hate it so much on him, even if it was still _dumb_.

"Richie…" Eddie breathed, then blinked rapidly, scrambling to get his thoughts together and form coherent sentences. He wanted to suck marks into Richie's sides where the cutouts were, and then watch him talk to people with them on his skin all night. "Uh...where? Where's your dick?"

Richie blinked, taken back. "That's all you have to say? 'Where's your dick?'" He spun in a circle and Eddie raised his eyebrows at the fact that the heeled boots kind of gave him an ass, but also at how fucking _long_ Richie's legs were.

"It's...It's all I can...My mind. I'm, _shit_." Eddie shook his head. "You're. Okay." He snapped his mouth shut and looked away before he burst something.

Richie laughed, but otherwise said nothing about Eddie's stumbling. "You don't have to _worry_ about my dick," Richie said, walking over and pulling Eddie into his arms. He pushed his hips into Richie's, and still felt nothing. Where did he _put_ it? " _Y_ _our_ Dick is right here, and he loves you."

"...You're talking about _you_ , Dick, right? Not like, my own--"

"No, I'm talking about me."

"Okay." He ran his hands over Richie's back until his hands slid under the white top of the dress. "You really do look hot in this. Like...disgustingly attractive to me right now." He scratched down Richie's shoulders. "We might not actually make downstairs."

Richie kissed Eddie's nose. "As much as I like that idea, I traded Beverly too much weed for her to make this dress and then not have anyone see it. Now let's go."

\---

The only thing keeping Eddie from literally jumping Richie was the wig. If Richie had decided to let the costume speak for itself and leave the wig at home, Eddie would probably have lost his mind by now, staring at the way Richie still stood like he had jeans on, feet apart and leaving his inner thighs for Eddie to fucking analyze while they waited for the others in front of their dorm building. This was going to be the longest night of his entire fucking life. 

Richie had a history of terrible Halloween costumes over their entire childhood, werewolves and vampires, Beetlejuice, Jason Vorhees when they were fucking _eight_ , because Richie **sucked** , but they were never...typically hot costumes. Luke Skywalker was good, but that was because Eddie was twelve and in love and was willing to overlook how many lightsaber jokes he made in exchange for all of his green apple Airheads. After Pennywise, they didn't go out for Halloween, usually opting for horror movies where they picked what scared them, instead of seeing a group of kids dressed as killer clowns and losing their shit due to their still-fresh trauma. 

If Richie did this when they were still in school, Eddie wasn't sure whether it would force him to admit his feelings sooner, or to hide them even deeper. It was one thing to be in love with your best friend, and get butterflies in your stomach when he smiled at you in a stupid vampire costume, and another for that best friend to put on a dress that was basically nothing, in thigh high boots, and look at you like he could devour you whole. He'd spent years fantasizing about Richie and feeling guilty about it, without him ever wearing _this_ , he'd probably actually enter emotional turmoil with the flood of thoughts that came with it. 

Now he just stared, openly, ignoring the others as they approached in favor of ogling the clean lines of Richie's body, the straight edges and angles and the way Eddie just wanted to _touch_ him, all over, in their bed. He was never fucking letting Richie live this costume down.

"Oh, Mr. and Mr. Sherlock," Richie greeted, as Stan and Mike walked up to them, on time as usual, dressed nicely as Sherlock and Watson, bowing deeply. "Greetings and salutations to you."

"Richie, you _can't_ be serious," Mike said, blinking hard like more clothes would appear on him if he wished it. Eddie smiled into Richie's shoulder. He had perfume on. " _Damn_."

"Thank you, thank you." Richie spun in a slow circle as Beverly, Ben, Bill, and Audra came over. Beverly wolf whistled loudly, but whether it was at Richie himself or her own work, Eddie didn't know. 

"Bev told me she was making your costume, but she never told me..." Ben trailed off, gesturing to Richie with a pink tint to his cheeks. His hair was slicked back and he looked almost similar to how Eddie was dressed, except his suit was black with white stripes and he had a tiny mustache drawn on him with eyeliner; two thin, straight lines swiped in either direction.

"Thank you, Mr. Addams." Richie waltzed over to him and grabbed his hand, spinning under his arm before falling into Beverly's, dressed as Morticia Addams', throwing his head back as she dipped him, like they choreographed this. Eddie, honestly, would be dumb to put it past them. Richie yelped as his wig fell to the ground, tumbling out of Bev's arms to pick up his hair and shove it back on his head. There was no way he kept that on all night. He was losing it by eleven, at the latest.

Bill, dressed as Alan Grant from Jurassic Park, a movie that had great emotional significance to Eddie, looked at Stan and Mike. "How did you decide which one of you would be Sherlock and which one would be the sidekick?" 

Stan squinted at him like he was planning Bill's murder. "I am not the _sidekick_. We're _equals_ ," he huffed, straightening his jacket. "And we flipped a _coin_ for it, _Al_." He struggled not to smile when Mike kissed his hair before breaking anyway and actually kissing Mike right there in front of them all.

"No fucking way!" Beverly chanted, her long, black, too-shiny-to-be-real hair splayed out everywhere. "You _whore!_ "

"Shut up!" He screamed, but he still had Mike's hand in his, and Mike was still looking at him like he hung the fucking moon. "There's no consequences here! I can kiss Mike if I _want to_."

"Of course you can!" Richie encouraged dramatically through puckered lips, reaching over and squeezing his cheeks from behind. "I'm so happy for youuuu!" He shook Stan's cheeks one more time before he pushed up on his shoulders and jumped on his back, ignoring Stan's _screeching_ protests, and wrapping his legs tight around Stan's waist.

"Richie!" Stan yelled finally, but didn't shake him off, stumbling before hooking his arms around the backs of Richie's boot-clad knees and carrying him as they walked down the street.

\---

The party was just in the beginning stages of batshit crazy by the time they got there, quickly picking up speed the longer Eddie stayed frozen in place. He'd spent the entire walk over focused intently on Richie's legs splayed on either side of Stan's back in that dress, while Beverly made sure he didn't trip on anything and crack his head open on the pavement, and therefore missed any slow integration he could have had, and now had to face the entirety of it head on. 

There was shit everywhere: cups, pong balls, bottles of alcohol strewn across the front lawn of this house that was way too fancy to be defiled like it was. A bra hung off of a plastic flamingo in the yard, and crumpled beer cans lay discarded around them. Music blasted out of the house so loudly that Eddie was surprised the house wasn't stumbling on its foundation, while throngs of people moved in and out of the house fluidly, in various states of inebriation, all with their own lives and thoughts probably way fucking cooler than Eddie's, that have been to way more parties than him and therefore don't look at the scene in front of him and want to vomit. 

"Oh my god,” Eddie breathed, noticing Richie’s long legs jumping down from Stan’s back and somehow managing to land safely, despite having all the grace of a baby deer on any other occasion. "I'm gonna die."

Beverly laughed, staring at the house with a gleeful awe. "You'll be fine."

Richie set his arms on Eddie's shoulders and pressed himself against him. "What about Eddie being fine?"

"In that suit?" Beverly asked, quirking an eyebrow. "Hell yeah he is."

Eddie sighed so loudly that it drowned out the blaring party standing menacingly in front of him.

\---

The next time Beverly tried to commit homicide via a speaker blaring in Eddie's fucking ear so hard his brain stem was disconnecting from his spinal cord, he would be sure to kindly reject the offer. It got to the point where it almost made him cry, but he didn't want to move and then _actually_ never be found again. Richie would come looking for him whenever he was done getting a drink, and he didn't want to lose him like he lost literally _everyone else_ , so he stayed put. He was certain they were in the sea of people around him, but they could also be in the weird stoner den that Eddie found at almost every party they went to, and he was unwilling to move and look, and then die trying.

All of them started out grouped flat against one wall where the main clot of the people, not talking to anybody unless someone made a conscious effort. This time, it was Beverly, going over to hug the guy who invited her while also trying to introduce him to Ben over all the noise. Bill was next, dragging a fake-blood soaked Audra-as-Carrie to the middle of the room. The rest joined them eventually, except for him and Richie, since Eddie was rooted to the floor and Richie had decided to drape himself over his back and breathe down his neck, occasionally looking up and making low, rumbling sounds in his ear while Eddie stared off into the distance and tried not to ruin this suit rental before the night was even over. Eventually Richie shook his head quickly, to clear his mind, and strutted into the crowd of people to dance with Beverly, Eddie watching as they grinded on each other and then laugh for three full minutes that they'd done it. Eddie stayed stuck in place, just watching the smooth planes of Richie's body move under the lights before the crowd grew and all of his friends disappeared from sight.

Eventually Eddie couldn't stand the volume of the music, which shook his brain so much it made him feel ill, unable to drink the semi-good wine cooler Ben brought him earlier, and so he pushed himself off the wall and moved in the direction Richie disappeared. He wasn't the shortest person alive, but he certainly fucking felt like it, struggling to see over anybody as he went. He felt like he lost his mom in a supermarket, ducking and wading past people as he tried to find someone he knew in the middle of the soup aisle.

Eddie found Richie in all his long legged, scantily clad glory, chatting animatedly with just about the prettiest girl he'd ever seen. She was dressed as princess Jasmine, with (real) long, black hair, unlike Beverly, tied up with aqua colored ribbon just like in the movie. She had this...way about her, this ease and beauty radiating off of her that made Eddie feel like she should have been dressed as a siren instead, her skin shimmering in the light.

He just stared at her, not trying to be creepy but definitely being entirely creepy, and watched the smooth way she moved, confidence in all her actions, as Richie talked like a fortune teller machine in an arcade, jolting movements to accompany his overly energetic words. She had her hand on Richie's arm, laughing and nodding at something he said, and Eddie smiled at Richie's face, a smile blooming out like it always did when someone actually took the time to listen to what he was saying. The deep, uncomfortable feeling swept through Eddie's chest as the girl leaned in close to him, inserting herself into Richie's personal space and looking up at him intently, batting her eyelashes in all her...beauty...and elegance...and her...everything about her, really.

Richie didn't notice, because personal space was unbeknownst to him anyway, listening to what she said and responding just as enthusiastically, an easy flow of conversation that Eddie didn't want to intrude on now that he was aware of it. He tried to busy himself with an almost empty bowl of pretzels, picking at the dust at the bottom so he wouldn't seem like a clingy boyfriend who didn't want their significant other talking to anybody other than him. He didn't _mind_ , honestly, she could have the same disregard for personal space, but there was also the fact that Richie was in like two strips of clothing and it was making Eddie dizzy.

"Eddie!" Richie called, while Eddie was tracing the outline of his thighs, substituting staring at this girl for staring at Richie. He looked up at Richie's beaming smile, like he'd spent decades without seeing Eddie and was only just remembering what he looked like. He tried to focus on the fucking moment, but it was drowned out by the weird hyperactive music they had on now, which made Eddie feel like his bones and skin were being held together by magnets, shitty magnets, that were starting to push against each other despite having the same charge.

"Hey, where were you?" He yelled over the music, pulling Eddie close by elbow and placing his hand on the back of his neck.

Goosebumps ran along Eddie's skin at Richie's touch. "Where was _I?_ Where you left me, you dick!" He shoved at Richie's shoulder, laughing as Richie pulled him back in and kissed his head. His face was red and he knew it, but he prayed it wouldn't be noticeable.

The girl shifted from one foot to the other, looking up at him with a bright red face. "I didn't know you were--" She waved her hands to indicate to the both of them. "Sorry." She nodded to them, giving them an awkward smile and walking away, moving through the crowds of people with _none_ of the difficulties Eddie had. The blessings of being conventionally attractive, Eddie guessed.

"Was she gonna say gay?" Richie asked, watching her walk away. "Was she _flirting_ with me?"

Eddie nodded, smiling. "Yeah, dumbass! She had her hand on your arm and shit."

"I just thought she was trying not to get swept up in the crowd!" He watched her as she sunk into the crowd. "Shit! I feel bad now!"

"Why?" Eddie looked at the long line of Richie's neck and swallowed, took a second to look at Richie again in that dress, running his empty hand along his sides until he got to his hips and digging his thumbs into the junction where his hips met his legs.

Yeah, _yeah_ , Eddie believed to the core of his being that him and Richie were meant to go _somewhere_ in life. That fate or some antithesis of Pennywise that wanted to not be a fucking weirdass, or God, or a turtle, or _whatever_ , put him and Richie on the planet to _be_ on the planet together, whether Eddie ever loved him and it wasn't returned, or was loved by him and Eddie didn't love him back. He knew love had to be somewhere between them, no matter who felt it, but that girl was fucking _gorgeous._ And she was flirting with _Richie_ , who, sure, wasn't winning any bodybuilding competitions any time soon, but was still beautiful on his own. And what was Eddie compared to that?

He knew that Richie didn't want anybody else and they talked about it all the time, but if that girl had told Eddie she walked off the Miss Universe stage to be at this party, Eddie would believe her, and he didn't understand how someone could. _Not_ understand that. Or be, like, _tempted_ by it in some way.

He pressed his drink to his lips to try and force himself to calm down, the sweat on his palm indistinguishable from the condensation on the bottle. He wasn't making any sense. He couldn't even look up at Richie. He put the bottle down without even drinking from it, barely even allowing air to pass through his mouth.

He knew, he _knew_ , that this was stupid, but he couldn't stop thinking about it. Eddie could see the appeal of his own face, but he wasn't...He wasn't _overly_ attractive. He wasn't like Ben, who was all poetry and soft lines over dedicated muscle and sweet smiles, or Beverly, who was somehow so sure of herself, even though the foundation she built her personality on was never put together correctly the way a parent should have influenced, unlike Eddie, who sometimes felt that the only part of him that was concrete was the love of his friends and the bitchiness, and all the shitty foundation his mom built preparing to collapse at any moment, taking what semblance of personality he had with it. 

Mike was all muscular and sunshine and fucking...farm boy hospitality, and Richie was all fucking lanky-grunge-geek-chic in a way that made him the most beautiful person he ever knew. Richie looked like he'd been crafted intentionally and meticulously, every detail of him curated and perfect in its conception. Eddie was just Eddie. Everybody else had, like, actual interests, and he was just interested in his friends. Which felt as dumb as it sounded.

Richie was looking at him by the time Eddie stopped staring at the floor. He took Eddie's hand off of his hip, holding it gently in his. "Do you wanna go outside?"

Eddie couldn't find the words to answer, then, under Richie's concerned gaze. He swallowed and nodded, placing his half empty bottle down on the table and letting Richie drag him through the crowd, somehow preventing them from being trampled before escaping out the front door, passing two guys passed out in an ocean of debris on the grass. The cool air passed swiftly across Eddie's skin, sneaking down the back of his suit jacket and causing goosebumps to sweep his arms. Richie kept marching past all of this, incredibly stable for a tipsy, lanky kid like he was, sitting them both down on a wrought iron bench placed in front of the front fence. Eddie could only imagine the number of drunk college kids who have slept on it over the years.

Richie smiled as Eddie sat close to him, their thighs pressed together on the cold metal seat. His gray pants absorbed Richie's warmth, his bare thighs bathed in the moonlight, smoothed out by the bright street light hanging over them. He ran his pinky over the back of Eddie's hand for a moment and then took it back, reaching up to slide his wig off of his head and expose his tiny ponytail of curls pulled back at the crown of his head. Eddie never wanted him to wear his hair any other way.

"You okay?" He asked, in the voice he saved just for Eddie, soft seriousness and genuine concern, the little wrinkle in between his eyebrows going right to Eddie's soul. "You looked...sad...or, well, you looked like you'd been caught jacking off, but then when you came over you looked upset. Like, way more upset than my usual 'parties hurt and I want to go home' Eddie. Were you..." He trailed off. "What's going on?"

"Was I what?" Eddie whispered, leaning his head on Richie's shoulder. "What were you gonna say?"

"You just...that girl said she didn't know I was gay...and she was flirting with me."

"Was it really obvious that I was staring--"

"Yes."

" _Fuck_." Eddie let his eyes shut when Richie laughed into his hair, the simple feeling of his smile enough to calm him down. "I was trying really hard to not make it creepy."

"Tried too hard and cancelled yourself out. Like PEMDAS," Richie mumbled. "But forreal, did us talking really bother you that much?"

"No! I don't care that you were talking to her! I care that she was...trying to get into your pants, for one. But, like, in a gross way."

"Ah, I'm not wearing pants," Richie corrected, before beaming like a dumbass because he was the fucking _worst_.

Eddie snorted. "You fucking should be, you're gonna freeze." He draped his suit jacket over Richie's lap and held his hand underneath it, trying to keep warm in the cool night. They've been through worse; nor'easters in Maine were nothing compared to this, but the gentle intimacy was welcomed on Eddie's part. He ignored Richie as he smiled at him, that stupid beaming grin he gave when Eddie did something nice for him, that made clear he saw right through his exasperated demeanor and right to the lovesick kid he really was. Like he needed another reminder that Eddie would do anything for him.

"Thanks," Richie muttered, nudging Eddie so they swayed to one side. "So _why_ were you worried about that girl and my _skirt?_ "

"...It's dumb."

This time, Richie leaned on his shoulder, even if he had to scooch over an inch in order to be able to reach it. "As are we, literally always. Spill, dude."

Eddie sighed, knowing Richie wouldn't let him get away with not saying anything, because he _never did_. "She was really just...really pretty," he muttered, attempting to give as little detail as possible so he wouldn't have to say the shit Richie would worm out of him eventually.

"Oh?" Was all Richie said. "You havin' a crisis on me? Gettin' bi? Not that I _mind_ , as long as you're not breaking up with me, but what made you start to won--"

"I'm not having a sexuality crisis! It's, I--" Eddie pulled his hand from Richie to cover his face. "Was that girl, like... _hot_ , to you?"

Richie laughed until he realized Eddie was serious. "...You know I'm gay, right? Like, I like dudes. And not even, like, dudes plural. I like one dude. And I'm pretty sure he knows I'm fucking gay, or else that would make all the making out and dating and, oh, yeah, _sex_ we have su _uuper_ fucking awkward. It's not like I had a whole dramatic coming out sequence or anything."

Eddie shoved Richie's shoulder, sending him knocking into the arm of the bench, dramatically throwing himself across it with way more force than Eddie had used. He threw his wig up in the air and swung his body in the other direction, landing in Eddie's lap as his wig gracefully plopped into his chest.

"That wasn't what I asked!" Eddie argued. "Did you...was she _attractive_. To you?"

"I _guess!_ She was _pretty_ , obviously. Hot, sure, if you're into...women. But I wouldn't want to, like, have sex with her or anything. 'Cause I'm _fucking gay_ , and also cause she's not my _type_. What is this about? "

"...What would your type be, then?"

"I genuinely am starting to wonder if your English prof is giving you brain rot." Eddie squinted at him, but said nothing more. Richie looked incredulous. "You, dumbass! Even if I was into girls, too! I'd just...want _you_." He sat up further and pressed their legs together again. " _Why?_ And don't say it's dumb! Because it isn't if it makes you freak out, and I'm actually starting to worry that you have secret conspiracies about me being a secret hetero behind your back. Is this what you and Mike talk about when you go to those weird cult meetings on Tuesday mornings?"

"Are you talking about the farmers' market?"

"Focus!"

"Says you! And I don't _want_ to focus! It's a stupid issue, which isn't even a real issue, that I shouldn't have even brought up! Let's go back inside, the others are probably looking for us."

"Eddie, I swear to god I will be _come_ straight if you try and say it's stupid one more time. Like, I'll go in there and make out with Bev or something."

Eddie shut his mouth and nodded, grateful that Richie said Beverly instead of Jasmine whatever-her-real-name-is. He, honestly, was just grateful for Richie. For being able to joke about stupid shit while also making sure Eddie knew he didn't see it as poitnless stupid shit. It was real, and he cared, but they could also joke about it. Sometimes Eddie worried that, if Richie wasn't there to break up his worrying into jokes and bantering arguments, that he would buckle under the weight, and spend the eternity of his life camping out under the Hollywood sign trying to scam money from hikers.

"It's not so much that it's... _stupid_ , just that you're gonna _think_ that it's stupid."

"Maybe, but I go to you with shit I think is stupid all the time and you're only a dick about it, like, half of those times."

"Fuck off," Eddie laughed, nudging Richie with his whole body because he was too choked up to let go of his hands. He eventually went silent and leaned his head on Richie's (ice fucking cold) shoulder. "Do you..." He thought about how to say his next words, before realizing he didn't know what they would be, and closed his mouth. "No."

" _Edward_ ," Richie scolded. "I'm literally not leaving this bench until you cough up what you're choking on right now. So fucking, _s_ _pill_."

Eddie rolled his eyes, but didn't continue. Richie didn't budge, either, or add anything, just waited. Eddie could see them moving here, to this bench. They wouldn't get their deposits back, or their tuition refund, and one of the Losers would have to bring them food to eat, but yes. They could die here, together. But what if that girl came back and started talking to Richie trying to get him to see that she was _way_ prettier than Eddie was, and that he should just leave Eddie here and go get married and have seventeen kids together and settle down and _she_ would get to be there for Richie and--

"Eddie!" Richie shouted, making Eddie jump, his face all deep lines and worried eyes. "You're hyperventilating…"

"...I think I have a lot of fears." He swallowed.

Richie pressed his cold nose to the crown of Eddie's head. "Really? That's so weird. It's not like we had something in our childhood that could detect our every fear and exploit them in order to feed off of our unbridled terror or anything. Not like you being afraid of _literally_ everything is one of the things that makes you you." He kissed his hair at Eddie's scowl. "You're okay, dude. The Losers all love you no matter how scared you are of _whatever_ you're scared of, and I think you're pretty okay on most days."

"Thanks, Rich…" Eddie swallowed. Richie was gonna laugh at him, and he knew he would, but he also knew that he wouldn't do it because he thought Eddie was pathetic, like Eddie _felt_. But Richie was also right, he didn't have anything to be afraid of. Not with him. So why did it matter if he felt pathetic? If he wasn't actually scared of Richie thinking he was?

"You can't tell anyone that this was an actual conversation we had. Like, I'll move to Alaska and trade sex for lodging in an ice fishing shed, you are not allowed to talk to anybody about the fact that I got so worked up about this."

Richie shook with laughter. "Okay."

"Cool," Eddie muttered. He pushed down all his stalling and dug into the heart of his own issues. "I know I'm not...the best looking person, alright?" Eddie whispered, squeezing his eyes shut as he felt Richie startle. "I don't _hate_ myself or anything. Like I look in the mirror and I'm like oh it's a face, alright, but it's. It's _just_ a face, y'know? I'm...and then that _girl_. Richie, she was... _beautiful_...and I freaked out because you're...hot...and gorgeous, or whatever--"

Richie was very obviously holding back from interrupting, but at this he pressed his face into Eddie's hair, and Eddie could feel his mouth against his skull, a straight line with upturned corners. The way Eddie talked always made Richie laugh, even if Eddie didn't know why. But he didn't mind right now, liked that Richie wasn't tensing up, or away, or fucking sprinting in the other direction. He would have to move in with Stan and Mike, and Stan would have to move in with Eddie because he couldn't handle being roommates with someone who left the room like Richie often left theirs. Eddie would try and bring up how it would affect him in the future, when they all lived together, and Stan would roll his eyes and explain that he doesn't mind sharing a _house_ with Richie, but never a room, which is why he was glad Eddie was the one Richie fell in love with when they were kids. It would be a disaster.

"More like...gorgeous, actually. I don't have the words to...explain it. If I had Ben here, maybe I could explain it to him and he could do it better, but you're just--Not in a, like, a John Stamos way, but you're, in like, an artsy way? A weird stat _uesque_ kinda--"

"Mhmm," Richie hummed, nodding so Eddie would stop rambling.

"Just. I feel like, _sometimes_ , I, like--I understand why people think you're hot! You are! Like, _no John Stamos_ \--"

Richie pulled back to look at him. "Are you having, like, sexual fantasies about John Stamos when I'm not around, or something?"

"I'm using him as an _example_."

"S _ure,_ " Richie whispered, squinting at him and smirking. Like he didn't _believe_ him. Like someone _could_ have their dream man be John Stamos when it was clear Eddie's preferences laid elsewhere. Richie was as far from Uncle Jesse as, literally, anyone could be.

"Shut _up_." Eddie jabbed Richie's leg under the jacket. "But, yes, _you_. You're beautiful and it's no fucking wonder that girl liked you, even in that ugly ass wig. I'm not... _like that_. I can't just walk into a party in a dress like that and grab everyone's attention the way you can, the way that _girl_ could. And I'm freaking out, because...What if in, like, twenty years, you're all famous and hot and you have all these other hot people fawning all over you, and you look at me and you realize...you deserve _better_ than this." He breath rattled around in his chest as Eddie squeezed his eyes tight. "I'm a dick to you sometimes. And what if that's all I am? An average dude who does nothing but bitch at you. Even if you say you love me for it, what if that wears off?"

Richie leaned back, his clumped mascara falling as tears dripped onto his cheeks, turning into black smudges when Richie wiped his eyes and black tracks down his face. Eddie wanted to leave this bench, go back into the front yard of the house behind them, and dig his own fucking grave. Eddie started tearing up himself. He felt so fucking _bad_.

Richie brushed Eddie's hair away from his forehead. "Is that really how you think of you? Is that how you think _I_ see you?"

Eddie's mouth opened and closed again and again. He. He didn't _think_ about it like that. He thought. He was all inside his own head, but he was also making assumptions on Richie's behalf. He didn't, he hadn't meant to--

"I didn't. I don't _think_ \--" He coughed as his throat caved in on him, all of his words pushing against the back of his mouth, clawing at each other to all be said first, to all get out at once. "No. I didn't mean it like that, I'm sorry--"

"I'm not _mad_ at you for thinking that, I just--I, I don't know. I love you. You know that?"

Eddie wiped his eyes with the pristine white dress shirt he had on, glad that Richie didn't rent that, because dry cleaning was _not_ in their monthly budget. He nodded. "I know that."

"And, dude, I'm _obsessed_ with you. Like, I'm gonna change my name to Brian Somnoperv because I am fucking... _infatuated_ with everything you do and are. You're the best person I know, _and_ you're hot as shit. You might not see it, which, I _don't_ get, but you're--" He stopped to tip Eddie's head back and kissed him. Eddie gasped into his mouth, kissed back like Richie was a storm shed in a twister, the only thing keeping him from blowing away. They probably looked so fucking dumb to anyone walking past.

Richie broke the kiss and wrapped Eddie tight in his arms. Eddie inhaled the sweetness of his perfume and Richie's skin, bathing in the warmth of him again.

"Eddie, remember the shit I told you about the fourth grade and the band-aids and the--"

"Marrying me, yeah."

"You were cute. You had skinny little fucking legs and a chubby little baby face that I wanted to _pinch_ \--"

" _Wanted?_ Did! _Constantly_. I had _bruises_ , Richie, **_scars_ \--**"

"--And then you turned thirteen, and you were still this little fucking asshole with these shorts on that made me-- _god_ , I can't even talk about it or my dick will _literally_ untape itself, but I thought that I was gonna die _then_. Then you had your growth spurt, and somehow, you were tan all the time? And your arms were soft and had beauty marks on them, and your thighs got all strong and you, it was like you got older overnight, and I was still this spindly fucking, geeky little asshole who would have to watch as you found somebody that was in _your_ realm of attractive, because I looked like a dying little Victorian orphan."

Richie wiped his eyes again so new tears wouldn't fall. "You--You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, and you not _only_ started out cute, you _became_ this cute, hot, gorgeous fucking _asshole_ who basically makes me pop a semi every time I look at your fucking face. And I tell you that all the time, so you should know. I mean it. How anyone looks at you and doesn't immediately jizz their pants is fucking beyond me. Me included." He squeezed Eddie's hand. "Your hair is all fluffy and soft, and the way it looks gold in the sun, that you get mad when I tell you because you can never see it when I point it out, and your smile and your eyes, those dimples you get when you smile really wide or frown really hard. Getting to make you laugh makes me happy just because I get to see your smile. A-And your neck, that beauty mark that you have next to where your Adam's apple should be, but isn't. Meanwhile it looks like I have a tennis ball stuck in my throat. A fucking bruised tennis ball, considering it's, like, your number one place to give me hickeys...I actually like how smooth your neck is, even if that's weird."

Eddie hid his burning face in Richie's chest. "I like you weird."

" _I_ like how slender your shoulders are, and how soft all the hair is on your body, especially on your legs. And the way you look, just, in general. You always dress really nice, and I, obviously, like, _love_ , the way you look when you _aren't_ dressed in anything." Eddie looked over at Richie, surprised to see his eyes wide as he thought about it. "The way your back arches when I fuck you, and you have to bite the back of your arm so you don't make any noise, even if we've already established that we don't give a fuck about our neighbors. You've become so different since we moved here, but you're still the same person. You're just not scared to be yourself anymore. Every day I get to learn new things about you, even if I think I know everything already." He turned around and rummaged through his bag and pulled out his necklace with Eddie's ring on it to put it on. "You took me in when my parents pushed me out, knowing your mom would have killed you if she found out, _knowing_ that the chances of her finding out were so fucking high, and then you say it's not big deal--"

"It _isn_ \--"

"My own _parents_ kicked me out, and you just. You took me in, and you, you're my _home_. You're so fucking funny I sometimes wonder how I can pore over comedy shit and still not even compare to half the shit that you just _say_ , without thinking. And you're everything I ever wanted." He kissed Eddie again, less urgently, but Eddie's veins still felt like they had molasses flowing through them, thick and struggling to move fluidly. "And I don't just mean I wrote a list of requirements, put it out in the world, and you checked off just enough of them, I mean I have never wanted anybody but you. I never will. And I'm not gonna leave you for some girl dressed like Princess Jasmine at a Halloween party, dumbass."

Eddie curled his knees up to his chest and nodded. "I know."

" _And_ , fuckass, _if_ I get famous, you're forcibly sitting front fucking row at every show, because all my shows are gonna be, at least in some part, about you. You're written all over my fucking life story, Eds, how would I miss you? Princess Jasmine never told me she was gonna marry me before jumping off a cliff. And I wouldn't want her to." He knocked their shoulders together. "'S our thing. Plus, you're not a fucking dick to me, you just don't tolerate my bullshit. I need that." He hugged Eddie close again. "I need you. You're my best friend."

Eddie spit out the fuzz from Richie's dress that got caught in his mouth, and Richie didn't even care that Eddie was getting his spit on him. They'd done worse. "You write that up before you came here, dick?"

Richie laughed and shoved at Eddie's face, and the tornado tearing apart Eddie's insides slowed to a stop. "Fucking asshole." They were silent for a moment, breathing each other in until Richie opened his mouth and said, "Oh, and maybe now isn't the time to bring this up, but you had your fair share of people staring at you in there, in that tiny little fuckin' suit. Who're you trying to fucking kid?"

Eddie pushed out of their hug, totally lost as Richie rested his cheek against Eddie's shoulder. "First of all, if you knew it wasn't the right time, why would you bring it up?"

"Wanted to."

"Of course. Naturally. Second, _you_ picked this suit out for me, so that's on you--"

"I know what looks best on my man."

" _Third_ , you're just lying to make me feel better, shut up."

"I am not! I almost ate someone alive in there. They were all looking at me like I was trying to, like, _convince you_ , to come home with me, draping myself all over you to seduce you, somehow, and because you weren't doing anything it meant you were, like, saying _no_."

Eddie snorted so hard it hurt behind his _eyes_. "I had to do that so I didn't fucking jump you against the wall! I've never had so much self control in my life!" He kissed the side of Richie's neck, then pulled back. "Is that why you were doing that weird thing with your throat?"

Richie furrowed his eyebrows. "What thing with my throat?"

Just then, the gate creaked open as a fucking _mammoth_ of a human being emerged from it, jacked as shit, blond hair, blue eyes, so tan it looked malignant. His eyes traveled up and down Eddie's body, chin lowering when he got to his face before doing it again, with more intent, and then turning away. Richie tensed next to him and sat up straighter, low growl tumbling from deep in his chest that made Eddie want to get on his knees right there on the sidewalk. They had issues. Richie gasped behind him, smacking a hand over his own mouth.

"What _was that?_ " Richie whispered, muffled by his hand, and Eddie laughed, kicking his feet as all the color had gone from Richie's face.

"I told you! I _told you!_ It's--"

" _Gross_ \--"

"Fucking _hot_."

Richie blinked at him, cheeks turning pink and pupils as wide as dimes. "We have issues."

"Like I don't know that." Eddie rolled his eyes and leaned into Richie's side, against his shoulder and closing his eyes. "I wanna suck your dick when we get home."

Richie laughed. "We need to stop having sex after major emotional moments between us."

Eddie whined, leaning back to nose at Richie's throat. "Want you in my _throat_."

" _Edward_ ," Richie scolded, his whole body tensing up next to him. "My dick is _taped_ to my _asshole_ right now with the medical tape from our first aid kit. You can't just _say_ shit like that. If it comes undone it _will_ be visible. This dress is short as fuck."

"Mm, good. It'll save time; you won't have to take any of your clothes off before you fuck me."

Eddie opened one of his eyes to watch Richie clench his legs together tightly, writhing in his spot, trying to do, fucking, something, but whatever was going on in there with the medical tape and the sweat and Richie's dick, Eddie didn't think he wanted to know. Eddie looked up at his face, red, with his teeth sunken into the overly-picked area of his lip he favored.

" _Shit_. I think we're having a Loser sleepover, anyway," Richie breathed. "So no fun for you."

He moved his head to rest his chin on Richie's shoulder right up by his neck and whispered in his ear. "I'd do it right now if it wasn't illegal and _gross_. Probably let you do whatever you wanted, just to let everyone in there know you're too busy to give them the time of day."

Richie threw his head back and hit the bushes behind them. " _God_." He turned to Eddie, all kinds of visibly turned on, but kissed Eddie slow and sweet like this was a fucking movie, like the orchestra was swelling and the director had given him a cue. "I don't have to fuck you here to know that," he told him. "I'm not worried about any of these people whisking you away or, even, you _entertaining_ that, because I know you." He laid his hand flat over Eddie's. "It would take someone a lifetime to know you like I do, 'cause I was there when you became you."

"And I was there for the same thing," Eddie agreed, flipping their hands so that his was on top. "Just don't like worrying about everything. Don't like when people don't know they can't have what's already mine."

Richie smiled at him, then got his little asshole grin on. "You really like calling me your property don't you?"

Eddie shoved him. "Not property, but I do--There's some part of you that I own, a small piece of you, somewhere, like you have a piece of me that's all your own."

"The part of me you _want_ to own is not that small, babe." He thrust his hips forward and then shoved them back, trying to get more comfortable with his...situation. "But yeah, I get what you mean."

Another person burst through the gate then, a bright, redheaded Morticia Addams followed by her other half, eyes wild and concerned until they laid eyes on the two.

"There you two are!" Beverly yelled. "We've been trying to leave for like half an hour, but we couldn't find you two, and now Stan is _smashed_ on jungle juice, and nobody knows how it happened," she rambled, "and Mike thinks it's really funny, but it's _not,_ because he will not stop talking about Fleetwood Mac, and nobody knows how to get him to stop."

Richie stood, slowly, carefully, and then winced once he was upright. Eddie smiled at his suffering, pride deep in his chest at being able to affect someone like that, especially because that someone was _Richie_. "We've been out here the whole time. Maybe if you _looked_."

"We didn't want to have to gouge our eyes out, _again_ ," Ben argued, mouth clicking shut. Eddie would feel bad if he could remember which incident Ben was referring to. Parties brought out something in Eddie he didn't even know before, but neither him nor Richie ever complained. Everybody else did, though. _Frequently_. 

Bev jabbed her finger at them both, "Now stay here while I go get the others. We're all going back to our dorms to shower and shit. We'll be back at yours in, like, an hour."

Eddie brightened. "Sounds good." He watched them walk away before trying to turn around to face Richie, but being stopped by both of Richie's hands pressed firmly on his hips. He pressed his own hips against Eddie's ass, and Eddie almost laughed at the flat plane that met him, but he knew that's not why Richie did it. He could turn if he wanted to, break Richie's grip or laugh at his dick taped back, but he knew he wouldn't. Richie knew, too, sliding his hands to cup Eddie's dick on the street, lips grazing the sensitive shell of his ear.

Richie chuckled under his breath when Eddie yelped and let him go, hands resting lightly on Eddie's belt. "A whole _hour,_ " he joked, smiling against the side of his head. His energy was entirely different from before, heat radiating off of him and sticking to the walls of Eddie's mind, stuck in the roof of his mouth. "Said you wanted my dick down your throat? Gonna let me?"

Eddie nodded, trying to hold back from making any noise as he watched all of their friends walk down the front steps of the house, not even able to freely move his head, just kind of rubbing his head up and down against Richie's face, his hair going everywhere. He bucked his hips into the feeling of Richie pressing his fingers harder into his skin.

"Hmm? Kind of waiting for an answer, here, baby."

"Yes," Eddie groaned, jaw dropping open when Richie bit down on the side of his neck. "Yeah, I'll let you. Let you do anything you want, you know that. Fuck, Richie, _Jesus_."

Richie smiled against his skin, letting him go as everyone came out to meet them, shoving his jacket back into his hand. "I'll think about it."

Eddie rolled his eyes at the fucking _asshole_ he was just, _incredibly_ horny for, as said asshole caught up with everyone and started talking to Ben. 'I'll think about it.' Like Richie wouldn't let Eddie fucking dog walk him if he wanted it, like Eddie wouldn't let Richie do the same to him. He shifted to readjust himself without trying to make it noticeable, moving his coat over his front, trying to ignore the miles of Richie's legs walking easily ahead of him.

This was going to be the longest walk home of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from god knows I've tried by kelsy karter !! 
> 
> thank you for reading!! comments are appreciated!! hmu on tumblr @sunflowersocialist


	4. seasons out of time

Fall break, or fall 'recess' as USC, Richie, and Bev liked to call it, much to Eddie's hatred, could not have come at a better point in Eddie's semester. He was one or two good lectures away from actually lunging at his English professor for talking about the 'dynamic, _intense_ , sexual nature' of _Lolita_ , while Eddie sat there and tried to daydream about being literally anywhere else. It was only a four day break, which was tortuous to Eddie's _desperate_ plea for a week off, but it also meant that all eight of them were staying on campus. The drive to Derry, with the terrible schedule they had, that they refused to let Eddie criticize because he couldn't drive, was three days there and back. They'd get to Chicago, maybe, and have to turn around if they wanted to make it back to class, so they (thankfully) gave up on trying to revise the schedule, and agreed to staying home with Richie and Eddie. 

They took advantage of the break given, though, hauling into Stan's car and Richie's truck and going to the beach nearest to campus. 

The day passed slowly, as crowds of people rushed onto the beach before eventually thinning out, leaving drunk college students and older couples, some small families dotted along the beach. One family had sat down a good two inches from Eddie's face, only to haul ass to the other side of the beach after walking up to him and Richie making out while everyone else tried to figure out a way to bury Stan, who was peacefully asleep under a towel, in the sand without him waking up. She called them 'depraved'. Like Eddie didn't already know that.

The sun had just begun to touch the horizon line, the big navy blue beach umbrella they rented not doing much but adding to the whole beach vibe. It was getting cooler, but not so much that Eddie needed to put his shirt back on, and so he laid back on the big beach blanket he bought the _moment_ they planned this, basking in the newly-sand-free fabric, still clean from when Eddie had to shake it clean ten _minutes_ after he set it down, when Richie tripped and kicked half of the fucking beach onto the blanket and Eddie's legs. He sighed, if only to breathe in the salt in the air, thankful that they didn't pick a landlocked state to be their escape destination.

He listened to everyone play volleyball, screaming at each other over made up fouls and 'accidentally' pelting each other with sand, and glanced over to where Audra sat in her beach chair. She didn't seem to share Eddie's warmth, wrapped up tightly in her towel and sundress as she watched the others with a sad sort-of-smile, her fingers poised between two pages of a book she'd been about to turn.

Eddie took his sunglasses off so he could look at her better. "You alright?" 

He was surprised Audra even came with them, if he were honest. She was so busy with her major and with all of her friends, hanging out with Bill whenever she could, she rarely ever had time for impromptu plans abruptly introduced whenever the collective Loser brain cell decided to do something, maybe four minutes before they left to go. He was happy she was here, someone who also hated the ocean and was content sitting with him in comfortable silence, but he was also concerned. She seemed distant the entire day, watching everyone talk while barely contributing, like her mind was somewhere else the entire day. How she had even read a page of her book, Eddie didn't know.

Audra blinked, then, her vacant look fading as quickly as Eddie had noticed it. "Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"

"...No reason." He offered her a sympathetic smile, which she mirrored, before going back to her book and Eddie went back to half-dozing off, half relaxing in the almost drowned sun and the laughter of his friends. He assumed she was upset at having to stay in California over break, at not being able to see her family over break, but she didn't book a flight and they would have never made it if they tried. Well, not unless they finally dropped the veto denial of Stan and Richie's idea to try and break the Cannonball Run record.

The dull _clunk_ of the volleyball landing on Eddie's blanket broke him from his thoughts. He sat up, his eyes snapping open in one direction at the ball next to his head, while women screaming came from the other. He reached over to grab it and throw it back, but screaming interrupted him:

" _Lucy!_ "

" _Lucille Ball you get_ **_back here right now!_** "

Eddie turned his head back as the biggest golden retriever he'd ever seen barreled towards him, barely giving him time to realize what was going on before he was being tackled by it, back hitting the blanket hard and knocking all of the wind out of him. He flinched at the shock, then looked over to find the dog trying to fit the whole volleyball into its mouth as everyone, including the two women, ran over to him.

"Eddie?" Richie called, after Eddie didn't sit back up, collapsing on the ground and covering his blanket in sand, _again_. "Are you alright?"

"I am so sorry!" One of the women said, not caring that her capri pants were white as she fell hard next to Richie in the damp sand. The other woman rounded him and got the dog, Lucy, wrapping up her wayward leash around her hand and gripping it tightly so she wouldn't lose it again, before prying the ball out of Lucy's mouth and setting it kindly back on the blanket.

"You're fine!" Eddie promised, sitting up. He placed his hand over Richie's, and looked at him. "I'm fine."

Lucy cried at the loss of the ball and licked the side of Eddie's face, which Eddie honestly didn't mind, trying to bribe him to give her the ball back. A dog's mouth was cleaner than humans, even if it was still kind of gross. He smiled, closed mouth, because if Lucy's tongue made contact with any part of his mouth, he would probably throw up, and pet her head, laughing as she put her paws on his shoulders and kept licking his cheek. One of the women tried to pull her off without hurting her, but Lucy proved resilient.

Capris lady apologized, gesturing to Eddie's face. "She likes the salt from the ocean, but if you say stop, she'll usually get down."

Beverly, who had definitely run over to see the dog and not him, the asshole, laughed and looked over at her while Eddie was being devoured whole. "She's fine! Where did you get her?"

The woman with the leash, who Eddie noticed had her hair cut short in a different way than other older ladies usually did, almost masculine, in a way, and a button up shirt with jeans rolled up to her knees. Interesting. She had a silver ring on her ring finger, and Eddie turned from where Lucy was trying to make his skull her new volleyball and noticed the same silver ring on the other woman's ring finger too. Oh _hell_ yes.

"Oh, from a shelter a couple miles from here," the leash-holding lady answered him. Richie looked up at her for the first time, whole face brightening when he saw her, as everyone just stood around not fucking saying anything because they were _useless_. "Her mom's owner couldn't find anyone to take her or her siblings, so they gave them to the shelter, and we got her and my sister got her brother."

"She's our baby," the capri woman added, looking up at the other with so much fucking _love_. Eddie wanted these women to adopt him. He wasn't even within the realm of kidding.

Richie's face lit up. "Oh my god, wait, can I give her--Do you feed her human food?" Richie asked, scrambling to stand and running over to their cooler.

"Depends on what it is," the capri woman, who Eddie thought looked kind of like Clara Clayton from Back to the Future III, laughed, as Richie rummaged through all of the empty juice bottles they put back in there when they realized they didn't bring a trash bag.

"Blueberries?"

Clara Clayton smiled. "She loves blueberries!"

Richie cheered, shoving the hand holding the carton of blueberries into the air, squeezing it so hard it popped open and drowned him in them, attracting a _swarm_ of seagulls, who began brawling on the sand for each one. Lucy interrupted, shooing most of the birds as she lapped them up, and Richie stared at her like he was about to start crying. 

He didn't even look at Eddie like that.

Eddie sighed later, the sunset now bathing them in cool air and a darker sky, while Stan and Audra laughed at Audra's physical inability to be good at volleyball. Eddie's adoptive lesbian moms had taken Lucy and left, bringing a few straggling seagulls back to peck at what their dog forgot, and Richie had just finished pouting about Lucy's departure while he laid next to Eddie on the blanket. His hands were freezing, but his body was warm, the scent of sea water and salt stuck to his skin. 

"Can we get a dog?" Richie asked, rolling on his side and kissing Eddie's bare shoulder. "Your skin really is salty," he told him. "You didn't even go in the water."

"I don't know what the fuck lives in there," Eddie argued, gesturing vaguely. "It's just in the air, and also my sweat, because it was fucking hot. And also no. We live in a dorm, remember?"

Richie leaned back on Eddie. "No _shit_ , Kaspbrak the Bitchy Ghost, I mean _later_ , in the dream house." He flopped onto his back and sprawled his arms out in either direction, one on Eddie's stomach, the other on the sand, scooping it up in his hand and letting it pour out, repeating the action over and over. "We have a huge fucking kitchen in the dream house, we can fit a dog bowl in that. Hell, let's throw in a water bowl, too. We're living on the income of eight people."

"...But would it be _our_ dog, or everyone's dog?" He threw Richie's arm back on his own stomach before leaning, half on Richie, half on the blanket, placing his chin on Richie's breastbone, and wrapping his arm around Richie's waist.

"Everyone's, but it would like us best."

"Who would like you best?" Beverly asked, dropping the volleyball Eddie almost died for in the sand and collapsing on the blanket next to them, lying on her side with one hand out to support her head.

"The dog we're gonna get in the dream house," Eddie explained, looking over at her until his neck hurt too much.

"Ben!" Richie yelled, making Audra jump as they walked back over, laughing at her surprise before knocking into Bill as they sat down together, turned towards each other like they had a secret between them they didn't want to let out. "Is there room for a dog in the dream house?"

Ben groaned and looked at them, eyes closed as he rested his head pillowed by his arms. "There's room for _everything_ in the dream house. It's literally a dream house."

Eddie acquiesced to that, remembering that they'd drawn up a constitution for the building of the dream house, one of which being that they would continue draft it until they were all twenty-five, adding and removing things from the wish list of rooms and features until they had something they were all happy with, something that additions and renovations wouldn't be desired for until at least five years later, and Ben would design it and they'd help as much as they could. Then, they'd figure out how much it cost to build, furniture included, and save until they could afford it. It was, for now, solid. Another clause was that if they got a billion different houses and it took _decades_ , and if they all grew apart, not emotionally, but geographically, then that would be okay, and nobody would hold it against anybody else. It was nice.

"So...sex dungeon?" Richie asked, smirking into the violet colored sky to avoid Eddie's enraged glare.

Eddie rolled onto his back and sat up. "Stan, dearest, are you looking for another boyfriend?"

Stan snorted from where he was slumped between Mike's legs, his body boneless and loose. "Not at the moment."

"Mike?"

"Maybe for Christmas." He laughed when Stan elbowed him, kissing the nest of curls on his head.

" _Shit_." He flipped over and looked at Richie, frowning deeply on purpose to be a dramatic bitch. "Guess I'm stuck with you." He kissed the side of his arm quickly so it would be clear he was kidding, just in case, and went back to how they were laying before, overlapping their bodies and absorbing his warmth.

"Yeah, you'll _be_ stuck, in my sex dungeon that Ben's gonna build me."

Ben gagged. "I'm not building you a sex dungeon. I _can_ , don't doubt me, but I _won't_."

"You don't _have to_ build **_me_ ** a sex dungeon. You can build _us_ \--"

"NO!" Everyone else objected, repeating themselves over each other until they all cut out at once. Eddie snickered into Richie's skin as he huffed and crossed his arms.

" _Fine_. Can we go home, now, though? My swim trunks are cold and I'm kinda scared that my dick is gonna fall off. I couldn't do that to Eddie."

Eddie buried his face in Richie's chest. "I'm filing for divorce."

Richie laughed, this lifeless, depressed thing that he tried to pass off for humor. "Can't even file for marriage."

"How sad would Eddie really _be_ , though?" Stan questioned. "If your dick fell off?"

"Well--" Richie started.

"This conversation was about dogs!" Eddie interrupted, rubbing his forehead on Richie's collarbone. "Dogs!"

"Ben said yes! We can have dogs!" Richie answered, "Stan asked another important question!"

"RHETORICALLY!" Stan yelled, standing up. "I did _not_ want an answer!"

Richie looked up and winked at him. "Sure you don't, Stan."

His screaming filled the air as Eddie pinched the fat on the back of his arm and twisted.

"Let's _go_ , you two! I'm freezing my ass off," Beverly complained, covering her shoulders with her towel as she put her things back into her beach bag. Eddie was about to ask her why she was still waiting when everyone else was already headed for the car, but then he remembered he needed her to help him fold the blanket, because, somehow, whenever Richie tried to help, it ended up crooked, which drove Eddie up the fucking _wall_.

"Sorry, Ringworm," Richie sighed, rolling him and Eddie over so he could get up, pushing himself up onto his hands and hovering over Eddie, his ring dangling so close to Eddie's face he was practically kissing it. _Eddie_ 's ring. His eyes zeroed in on it and his brain froze.

Richie looked down at him, having caught whatever emotional journey Eddie just went on. "What part of that could you possibly have found hot?" he whispered.

Not knowing how to answer without sounding like he was comparing Richie to a dog, which, no, he didn't say anything at all. He wrapped his hand around the cord close to his neck and used it to pull Richie down to kiss him, curling his fingers in his hair before sliding up and out from underneath him, shivering as Richie tried to kiss his stomach but only managed half of one on his waistband.

"Dick! Eddiot!" Beverly called again, thin, oval sunglasses on even in the relative darkness, because she was just as much a dramatic bitch as Eddie was. He loved her.

"Sorry, I was being corrupted!" Eddie apologized, picking up his side of the blanket as Richie pulled his car keys out of Eddie's bag and headed to the truck. Eddie smiled to himself when Richie turned around and grabbed Eddie's bag, hauling it over his shoulder and kicking sand everywhere as he ran back to his car. Beverly retched as Eddie watched him run, all the beauty marks on his back Eddie loved fading away the further he got.

"You two are disgusting." She helped him shake the blanket clear and fold it neatly, ignoring Eddie's rolling eyes as they met to fold the blanket in half.

"Sure, but I bet if _you_ asked Ben for a sex dungeon, he would build you one."

Beverly quirked an eyebrow over her red lenses, resting on even redder cheeks. "Who said he hasn't already? Why do you think he said no so fast?" With that, she ran off to the parking lot.

Eddie spluttered, trying to absorb the information that just deposited itself into his brain, the lightbulb above his head exploding altogether as he chased after her.

"Beverly Elfr _ida Marsh you get the_ **_fuck_ ** _back here! I have questions for you!_ "

Bev's cackle echoed across the whole beach. "No fucking _way!_ "

\---

Eddie sat on Audra's bed, leaning on Richie, who was leaning on Bill, who was leaning on Audra, nodding as Bev started to fall asleep, then snorted and woke herself up. Ben stood at the front of the room with a wide tip sharpie marker, frantically writing down bullet points from a smaller list onto a page of Beverly's billboard sized sketchbook. Eddie blinked slow and languid as he watched the hypnotizing movement of Ben's writing. _Pool, hot tub, study, library?, bedrooms_ (crossed out because Ben wasn't paying attention when Richie first said it and wrote it down) _, studio for B &B, home theater _\--

"Th, the theater can have a stage in it, for Richie to practice his sets in, and we can be an audience," Beverly pitched, sitting up so it was a little easier to stay awake.

A wave of emotion went through Richie's fatigued face. "Thanks, Bev. It can have a little backstage in it on either side for you to have people come over and model shit for you, when I'm not doing it, obviously."

Bev snorted. "You joke now, Richard, but when I need your lanky ass, then we'll see who's laughing."

"Not me, cause I'll be pouting." Richie hollowed out his cheeks, which, Eddie couldn't--no. Not now. He jut his lip out and batted his eyelashes, before noticing something on Ben's list. "You can have a home office for Eddie," he observed, then looked over at him. "If you wanted to open your own practice?" He leaned his head on Eddie's. "I can't imagine you're one to _enjoy_ someone telling you what to do when it comes to helping kids."

"What if he wanted a second opinion?" Bill asked, taking advantage of Richie's newly free shoulder and nuzzling into it.

Richie didn't miss a beat. "Well, he has to do a weird internship thing, for, like two years, so he'll make friends there, and he can ask them. But, by then he'll be like…" He nodded his head as he counted. "Twenty-six? Yeah, so, we can build that bridge when we get to it. Or, that office, I guess, we can build…." He hung his head. "I'm so tired."

Ben stopped writing at _'big yard w/ garden'._ "You guys can go to bed if you want! I didn't--"

"No!" Eddie, Richie, and Bill said. Stan, Beverly, and Audra all just kind of groaned in a way that expressed the same sentiment, but had too much fatigue to form words.

"This was literally our idea," Beverly told him. "I _gave_ you the sketchbook."

"Plus," Mike added, "I kinda like holding the paper." He looked down at the list, reading it upside down before his eyebrows wrinkled. "Ben, I'm still loving this, but I'm not seeing my counter island on here."

"Because you say counter island every time!" Stan muttered, dragging his hands down his face. "And that's not a room!"

Mike scoffed. "Neither is 'big yard'! Shut up!"

"I don't think I like who Mike and Stan become after dark," Audra mumbled, leaning to put more weight on Bill, but then wobbling and collapsing back onto her bed. She curled around Bill's hips and didn't get up.

"Me either," Richie agreed. "They sound like me and Eddie."

"We're _way_ meaner than that." Eddie kissed his shoulder. "I hate you sixty percent of the time."

Richie snorted into Eddie's hair, then pulled back and sneezed, into his elbow thank _god_. "You're right."

"Always am."

"Sure," Richie chuckled. Eddie giggled into his shirt until he fell asleep there, to the smell of the beach, and the peaceful, extremely loud arguing, over whether or not they wanted a formal dining room.

\---

Eddie sunk lower into Richie's bed as he flipped through his textbook glossary, forty thousand fucking pages on words beginning with the letter _s_ that he almost forgot that there were any others, trying to find the _one_ specific phrase his Social Analysis seminar that their professor mentioned maybe twice, meaning Eddie was one hundred percent going to see it at a five hundred point bonus question on their quiz the next day. He knew that, without obsessing over its definition, he would get the entire question wrong, and then fail out of school due to his own stupidity. If he did, he would only get it two-thirds wrong, and would just lose all his scholarships and end up having to sell locks of his hair for money.

He almost wished he could be like Richie, who would skim the chapter once before taking the test, then get a hundred like he didn't even mean to. Last test, there'd been a twenty point essay like this, Richie got the whole thing, even though he was out late with Bev the night before, and claimed he just 'reverse engineered the statement' and figured it out that way, which, what did that even _mean?_ At that point, Eddie stopped asking, because the more he asked, the more Richie elaborated, and the more dumbfounded and enraged Eddie got. Eddie knew, though, that Richie was just one of those people, even if he'd doubted it at first, and worried that he'd lost it. He hadn't, and Eddie adored him for it. It would just be so much easier to not have to _work_.

He uncapped his highlighter and ran it over the phrase he was looking for, appreciating the timing as RIchie burst into their room. Eddie leaned against the headboard to watch Richie strut in, his arms splayed out like Jesus on the cross, a packet of papers in one hand and a black shirt in the other. He turned to Eddie's bed, before stopping mid-beginning breath and dropping his arms. He spun around, to where Eddie actually was, and stuck his arms out again. Dear, Christ.

"Eddie sour, my love!" He swung his arms down like a very bad classical conductor, throwing the shirt and papers down at the foot of the bed, bouncing on the mattress. Eddie leaned forward, squinting at the curly gray script on the breast of the shirt that read 'ROCK BOTTOM BAR' with the tagline _'can't get any worse than this!'_ , which, was pretty counterintuitive for a tagline, but Eddie digressed. The front page of the packet was a recipe for the perfect martini.

He dropped a kiss to Eddie's head as he rifled through the packet, which was all drinks and nothing about actual guidelines for what this was supposed to be. "I am happy to tell you that you need not _worry_ about how we are to feed the children, for I have found a job! That will provide us with cash! And I wear clothes at it!"

This must be a joke. It _had_ to be, but Eddie looked down at the shirt, and back at him, and down at the shirt, without Richie providing a punchline.

Eddie nodded, then shook his head. "Nope, totally lost. What's going on?"

"I got a job! As a bartender!"

"What, just now?" Eddie asked, looking back at the door, like the bar would be on the other side. "Were they taking open auditions or something?"

"Fuck you, but basically. I got lost trying to get home from class, don't ask, there was a cat I thought was trying to show me something--"

"Oh my god."

"It had recognition in the eyes! It knew _something!_ But, regardless, got lost, passed this place, saw a help wanted sign--"

"That doesn't mean that _you_ , specifically, have to help, dingus."

"I want money!"

"For _what?_ "

"For _us_ , fuckweed! Our budget is so tight already, and yeah we have it pretty good, but I want us to have it _better_. Like, I'm talking about a full bottle of lube, not just the little ones, Eddie. You deserve a full bottle of lube." He all but shoved Eddie over into the wall before joining him on the bed, jean jacket rough on Eddie's arms, but in a comforting way that didn't really hurt.

"You're fucking ridiculous," Eddie muttered.

"You _do_. So, I went in and applied, and I was supposed to go and then they'd call back for an interview whenever, but the manager was already there, and he was going on vacation the next day, so they just interviewed me then, and I got the job. I was gonna ask to start training, but I remembered our laundry date so I came home." He kissed the side of Eddie's head. "Plus, now I can start saving for the apartment."

Eddie hmphed. "You don't need to do that _now_. We have all summer. We're all gonna save money, and when you split what we need into eighths, that's not even, like, an insane amount of money for one person. Not enough to get a job in fucking November." He wriggled further into Richie's arms. "Are you even old enough to be a bartender?"

"Gotta be eighteen, baby, 's it. _Plus,_ when I finally get to finishing a set, I can start writing about you _and_ the weird fucks I'm _inevitably_ gonna meet here. Whole new set of material, might actually last me till I'm twenty-five."

"What about the hours?"

Richie shrugged. "They suck, but what can you expect? It's like, middle of the night to early morning shit, but it's only four days a week. You won't miss me."

Eddie huffed and leaned back. Yeah, he _would_. Richie's snoring drowned out the noise from outside, like Eddie's personal white noise machine, and the gentle intimacy of them both pressed together while they slept made him feel safe, made sleep come easier when he knew he wasn't there alone. Honestly, it's been almost a year since he slept _without_ Richie in his bed. He wasn't entirely sure he could still do it without him.

Aside from the comforting qualities of his physical presence, he was _Richie_. Eddie liked talking to him while they both fell asleep, until Richie's laughter faded into snoring or until Eddie sank into his own slumber and Richie kissed him on the forehead, thinking Eddie was too asleep to feel it, before wrapping his body around him and falling asleep on his own. It was like a middle school sleepover but every night, whispering under the covers so nobody would yell at them to settle down. He got to have a sleepover with his best friend every night, and now he wouldn't anymore.

"...But, what if I will? I still think getting a job before second semester is dumb, but fine, okay, you have a job. Now you're telling me you're gonna be _gone_ four nights a week? But, then again, what if this is that thing you said a couple weeks ago? Where I'm being selfish and I don't want you to have nice things like new experiences, because I think it should be just us for the rest of our lives?"

Richie rolled his eyes. "Even if it _was_ like that, which it really isn't, we're just super clingy, at least you are self aware enough to clock it. You would never let yourself do that, you're too self aware. Or self critical, either one--"

"Oh, _fuck_ off--"

"Be _sides_ , if I meet new people and want them in my life, you'll meet them way before you get to freak out about being selfish or whatever, 'cause I want you there for all of my shit, including new people or whatever. Now, if these new people don't want me to spend as much time with _you_ , then that's a problem. 'Cause you're my husband."

"I am," Eddie said, hating the way the acknowledgment stuck in his mouth like he didn't want to say it, like it would all disappear if he did. He pushed Richie onto his back and laid on his stomach on top of him. He really should try and get them to leave, but the laundromat was open twenty-four hours and, now that Richie got a job, he was gonna have to start savoring every moment if he didn't want to focus on his gay withdrawal. He laid his head on Richie's chest and sighed when Richie buried his hands in his hair.

"You still wanna go?" He asked, gesturing to their laundry bag sitting by Richie's desk.

"In a minute." He groaned and squeezed Richie tighter. "Why do you have to get a _job?_ Can't you just stay here all day so that you can hold me whenever I want after classes?"

Richie looked at him. "...So you want me to be a sex slave, but for emotional intimacy?"

"Yeah. I could give you, like, ten bucks a week."

Richie threw his head back on the headboard so abruptly that it _had_ to hurt. "Ha! I appreciate it, but no thanks, Eds. 'M gonna have to pass."

"Shut up, you would love to be my sex slave." He climbed up to kiss Richie, heart thumping at the way Richie held him close, not allowing one atom of space between them.

"No fuckin' doubt about it, but you would never be able to handle me as your sex slave. You once said reverse cowgirl was _tasteless_ because it was too 'disconnected', like someone's dick isn't inside you."

"It _is!_ Like, at least _look_ at the person if you're gonna do the work, instead of having them just lie there like a sex doll! You don't have to _love them_ , but at least imply that you know there's more than just you and a dick there." He grimaced picturing it. "And if I looked down when we were fucking and saw your fucking feet, I'd throw up. Besides, I like to look at you. You're kinda cute in the dark."

"Shut the fuck up," Richie laughed, shaking Eddie's whole body. "Even if I am working and can't be your sex slave, you'll still see me seven days a week, and I don't work Thursday, Friday, Saturday, so we can sex it up then."

Eddie ignored the urge to correct the phrasing. "As long as we don't turn into those fifty year old straight people in loveless marriages who don't ever see each other ever and just eventually stop caring, but don't ever actually divorce because that would require admitting that they 'failed' at something."

Richie reached down to grab Eddie's hand and curl his pinky around his own. "I promise we'll never turn into fifty year old straight people. We'll just have to go on dates earlier in the day."

"We haven't been on a date in _months_." Eddie thought about the last time they went on a date, a formal one, which probably wasn't since before school, in the summer. They'd been dating for...six months next week. Holy _shit_. He'd take Richie on a date then.

"Yeah, 'cause we're college kids and there's only so much cheap shit to do in Los Angeles, but we can go on one soon, do dinner or some shit, even though we have dinner together every single day because we _live together_."

"By that standard we go on dates every day."

"Feels that way, doesn't it?" Richie kissed the top of his head as Eddie looked up at him. "'Cause we're so in _looooove_."

"You suck."

Richie wiggled his little bastard eyebrows. "Hell yeah I do."

Eddie gagged like that didn't interest him and got off of the bed, ignoring the loss of warmth as he grabbed his shoes from under the bed, leaning against the grabbing his shoes from next to the door and leaning against the wall to put them on. Richie sighed and got up, still in his own shoes, and grabbed their laundry bag from the floor.

"Honestly," Eddie said, struggling to keep his balance as he tied his shoelaces, "I should get the right to be mad at you for getting a job without telling me, or even _implying_ that you were gonna get one, even if I decided I'm not mad."

"Yeah? You wanna have an argument about it?" Richie asked, little smug smile he did when Eddie complained about them being a, weirdly, functional couple who planned arguments, or whenever Eddie requested something stupid of him that he was about to give into. He loved it.

"Maybe! Like, _why_ do you have to be so fucking financially responsible all the fucking time when our whole lives it's been _nothing_ like that! Like, you killed your _goldfish_ in the tenth grade because you forgot to take it out of the bag for a week! And _now_ , when I've gotten _attached_ , you get a job? Bullshit!"

Richie dropped the laundry bag and put his hands on his hips, and Eddie's heart stuttered as he flipped his hair out of his eyes, which had grown out considerably. His hair had _curls_ now, full circles, that looked like he'd put them in rollers every night.

"You _know_ I didn't mean to do that!" He bent down and swung their laundry bag over their shoulder, narrowly missing the ceiling. "That bag was his home! With his original water! I didn't know how to acclimate him into a bowl so he wouldn't die! It was an _accident!_ I **loved** that fish!"

"And you love me, too! Are you gonna leave _me_ in a bag when you're at work?"

Richie scowled, trying to think, his shoulders shaking with laughter as Eddie stood up straight. Eddie could barely breathe trying to stop himself from joining him, helpless as Richie pulled him into a hug.

He huffed once his face was pressed up against Richie's chest. "You fucking suck. I'm gonna change the locks on the door when you leave, so that you won't be able to get in and you'll have to sleep in the hall."

"Yeah, of course, now come on. You can be mad at me until we're done, 'cause I'm not fucking pairing socks by myself, in silence. That's the most boring shit in the _world_."

"I'll think about it."

\---

When Eddie woke up for his English class that Monday, he did it to a _huge_ bottle of lube on the pillow next to him and a toy horse with a cowboy action figure taped onto it backwards. He groaned and peeled the sticky note off of the bottle of lube.

_Happy six months, asshole. You deserve it. See you later_

_\-- you fucking know who_

Eddie scoffed and put the note on their nightstand, smiling like an idiot. "Fucking dick."

\---

"You started with _out us?_ " Beverly yelled as she and Richie slammed into the room, Richie following with equal parts amusement and faux anger. He snorted as Beverly ripped the joint they'd been working on from Stan's hand and taking a drag of it. Calling, "Hey!" when Richie plucked it right out of her hands.

"Oh shut it, Marsh, I paid for half of this," Richie said, traipsing across the room between Stan and Mike on their scoop chairs and Ben on Richie's desk chair before crawling onto their bed with Eddie. He kissed him and then took another drag, shotgunning the smoke into Eddie's mouth before passing it back to Ben. Eddie tried to suppress the sound he made at the urgency of his action, kissing Eddie like it was the only thing he'd thought about since he left for work hours before.

"You said you would be done by two; You're late. Don't blame us for being punctual." Stan's hair was everywhere, his eyes bleary and half lidded, lazily swinging Mike's hand back and forth between them. High Stan was one of the best Stan's, after sober Stan, but in front of drunk Stan, and Eddie loved how laid back he became.

"They were teaching us how to close!" Richie threw back, his whole weight on Eddie making him go down a route he really didn't want to with all of his fucking friends in the room with them. He caught Bill and Audra's eyes from behind Richie's ear, both wide in warning that said do _not_ do this, but Eddie was very quickly losing grip on restraint now that Richie was here, surrounding him in his smell and his face and his body and his _him_.

"I still can't believe they let you two work in the same place, let alone a place with alcohol," Bill laughed, before full on cackling when Audra hid her face in his shoulder so they wouldn't hear her giggling.

That was something Eddie hadn't expected with Richie getting a job. For Beverly to come to them less than two weeks later and tell them she got a job at the same place. Beverly, the girl who waited two days before the deadline to register for classes, and to send in her deposits four hours before they were due, second one to get a job after their resident Worst Organized Man Living. She wanted to be a bartender too and just split hours with Richie, but they only have two at any given time, and it has to be one trainee and one actual bartender, so Bev got stuck with waitress, which was super fucking dumb, but once they've been there long enough, Bev said she's gonna go for bartender once Richie is a 'real' one. Eddie heard a whole rant about it after she applied.

Eddie was so proud of Richie, in a way that he couldn't explain without feeling like he was being condescending towards him and treating him like a kid. He was killing it in his classes again, got a job, _and_ he'd been managing his time well enough that he started writing, small shit and disconnected, scattered jokes that Eddie genuinely laughed at, then had to convince Richie he wasn't faking it. For the most obnoxiously loud person Eddie knew, he was pretty worried about being everything concerning talking. Eddie wanted to hear him do comedy forever, even when he lost touch with younger people and the only person he could make laugh was Eddie when the Loser mansion also doubled as their nursing home, he never wanted him to stop.

Eddie looked over at Richie, who was now lying back on their bed next to him, blowing smoke out in weird little clouds like a jackass, and he thought about how fucking far Richie had to come just to be here, and how grateful Eddie was just for that. He thought about what Richie told him in the summer, about having to fight Pennywise twice as hard just so they wouldn't lose each other.

He couldn't have ever imagined that in the moment. The little asshole Richie was, fighting It in a disgusting little dead kid lair, screaming like a damn maniac as he whipped a baseball bat at Pennywise's face for him, for his friends, and for _Eddie_. He'd been shown his worst fucking fear by that thing, and one part of that had been Eddie finding about his feelings for him and turning him away, hurting him, even killing him. His parents finding out, beating him until he couldn't breathe anymore, which he'd seen come true. Richie helped them face a demon who got off on feeding them fabricated images of their worst fears, and then watched as his own came back in the form of a twisted reality he'd done nothing to earn. The things he did for himself, for Eddie, for their friends, and he never got the recognition he deserved for any of it. He pulled himself out of the fucking sewers, out of his parents' house, out of Derry, just to be able to be the person he'd always been without being able to let anybody see it, and he took his love for Eddie with him throughout all of that.

Eddie barely remembered the fight. He knew what they did, and he knew how they did it, but his rage had blinded him, and after he kicked It in the face, the rest was kind of a blur. He was more worried about his 'illness' than his feelings for Richie at that point, until he realized, later, that Pennywise _not_ acknowledging his feelings scared him more than if he had, and that the fucker had to _know that_ , which made the fact that Eddie killed him even more satisfying. Eddie fought for himself, he fought for Beverly, Ben, Bill, Stan, and Mike, but he fought for Richie in a different way. Not more, just differently. He didn't want any of them to die, but he didn't want to live in a world that Richie wasn't in.

They were sitting in a room getting high like regular college students, and they may not have saved the world. They may have just stopped a few dicks from being eaten by a weirdass clown, but it wasn't about the people they'd become, it was about giving them a chance at all. It was about kids in their school who had gone missing, that Eddie identified by the bottoms of their sneakers as they floated above a heap of last memories. It was about the babies crying in the Derry Hospital nursery, as Eddie took the joint back from Richie when it came around to him again, that, in ten years, would be able to have their biggest worry be about budgeting their allowance so that they could afford the new Skip-It after they'd...skipped It. It was about the tween bullies that would be stuck in the worst years of their life long after Eddie was dead and fucking gone, who would be able to be adult assholes without having all that potential cut short by the biggest fucking asshole on earth.

"I love you guys," Eddie told them, sitting up and realizing he was crying. He wiped his tears, flailing his hand as all the emotion got lodged in his throat like a chicken bone. "And I know we don't _talk about it_ , but, and we don't have to, obviously, 'cause _fuck_ , but, I just wanted you guys to _know_ , because I don't think I ever have, that when we fought _him_ , I did that shit because he sucked and he was after our fucking throats, but I also did it for you. I-I didn't want to die, but I couldn't, I couldn't lose you, either." He shuddered and turned to Richie, who sat up when he did, concerned. "I refused to lose you."

Richie nods, gets all of what Eddie is trying to say, eyes boggling in his glasses, bloodshot and filled with tears. "Us too. _Me_ , too."

Stan cleared his throat and spoke, dragging Eddie's attention away from Richie and over to him, with tears dotting his eyes. "I-I guess I always felt like that too. And I know we don't talk about it, I know _I_ don't talk about it, and I even shut you guys down about it a lot when you tried before, and I'm sorry about that, but yeah. I'm--I used to be afraid, of everything, _everything_ , and after P--after _him_ , he kind of paved over all that fear, or, my ability to talk about it. I thought if I talked about it, he would come back, and it would happen all over again, and we would have to relive it again, and again." He stared down at his hands, tightly clasped together now. "Growing up, I thought if I ever told my dad, about anything, about him, about being gay, anything, I was terrified, but I knew that if it went badly, I still would have a family, and thanks." He sniffed and wiped his eyes again. "So, thank you. For fighting for me down there, for being my family."

Everyone stared at Stan for a long second. Eddie nodded, trying to digest Stan's words through the haze in his brain and the surprise that he mentioned it. As time went on, and that summer went further back in their rearview, Stan went from barely acknowledging it, to straight up ignoring that it ever happened at all. He wanted to be 'normal'. He wanted to be okay, to give up on the nightmares and the trauma and the memory. He once told Eddie about how he sat up at night, all night, watching his window, his door, staying awake so he couldn't dream about anything. He used to think about getting into a car crash, trying to get amnesia, to be a nameless teenager in a hospital for the rest of his life, or to not wake up at all. They'd got into a fight about that one, after Eddie told Richie and they asked Bill what they should do about it, and Bill asked Stan about it, and Stan got upset that Eddie told the others what he said. Eddie loved Stan so _much_ , a whole new wave of tears came over him.

"Get the fuck over here, Stanley," Richie choked, wrapping his arms around Stan tightly as he nodded and walked into their arms. Stan screeched as Richie flopped backwards, so all three of them were a collage of bodies on their twin bed.

"DOGPILE!" Beverly yelled, rushing over to them.

"No, no, no!" Eddie stuck his hands out in front of himself, but it was no use. Beverly crashed diagonally on top of him, followed by the rest, and Eddie somehow got elbowed by every single one of them.

"We're gonna break this fucking bed," Mike muttered from...wherever he was.

"Don't worry about it," Richie said, muffled by everyone else. "If me and Eddie haven't done it by now, there's no way you will."

Stan groaned. "For the record, I'm now laying on top of Richie to kill him, not for fun."

"Love you, Stan."

"I'm gonna murder you."

\---

Eddie stirred his ice around in his glass as he waited for Richie to come back to their table, in a weird seedy bar Eddie is kind of scared to be inside of, nodding his head along to the song the girl on stage was singing. She wasn't good, and she was white with dreadlocks, but Eddie thought that at least one person in the entire place should look like they didn't resent this girl with a passion. He shifted in his seat, a metal chair that didn't match any of the other three at their table, which didn't match each other either. Their table wobbled on one leg, and the couple next to Eddie kept glaring at him when he set his feet on the legs and made it rock from side to side. _Whatever_.

He felt almost like he was cheating on their friends being here, waiting for Richie to go on stage and perform his first _ever_ comedy set without any of them there. They had to take the bus to get here, so nobody they knew could walk in and see Richie and get pissed that he didn't tell them, when he'd actually told nobody except Eddie. The others knew about Richie wanting to be a comedian, but he never talked about it with them, always so scared that they would turn and make fun of him, like they all weren't trying to follow their weird niche dreams. He called it a 'different brand of asshole-ry' and got huffy when Eddie called him an idiot for it, like they weren't so close for being a unique gaggles of assholes in the first place. Hell, the only reason Eddie probably knew about this was because they lived in the same room.

Eddie held his hands the whole ride there, as they shook like an earthquake. He'd eaten _basically_ nothing the entire day except water, saltines, and Dramamine, which Eddie scolded him for until Richie said Eddie was going to be doctor of psychology not medicine, and Eddie tried to smother him with a pillow. He was worried right alongside him, knowing the set by heart with how much Richie practiced out loud, cursing at his missteps and carefully planning his body language and gestures for when he got on stage, knowing how funny it truly was, but not knowing if these people would think the same. Eddie also worried about himself, because he was one of those boyfriends who would glare at people who didn't laugh until it caused attack damage.

Richie's whole ten minute set managed to cover a range of topics without being all over the place, and focused while not being a droning speech. Eddie was overflowing with pride over it. There was a part somewhere in it about JFK that made Vitamin Water come out of Eddie's fucking nose the first time he heard it. He was hilarious, but he was also scared. Downright terrified, actually, of being a failure. He couldn't sleep the night before because of it, shaking like a leaf before rushing out of their room for fifteen minutes, coming back in later for his toothbrush, and then going back. Eddie sighed and waited for him to come back, his pale skin and clammy hands, which always happened after he threw up. He talked about how scared he was that he came out here for nothing, didn't want to step out of his comfort zone only to be shot down and forced back in, and Eddie listened, combing his fingers through his hair, until Richie's heart rate slowed down to a healthy pace and he drifted off, all of his anxiety exhausting him.

He avoided their friends all day, not even speaking to Bill in their shared class that morning, and hiding away in their dorm between their classes. Eddie would usually go to Beverly, or someone, and vent to them about his concerns about Richie, but for this, he didn't say a word. He knew if he told Beverly, and then came here and it went bad, then tomorrow she would ask, and Eddie would have to tell her, and then she would tell Ben and Ben would be super nice in the inoffensive way Ben always was when one of them didn't do as well in something as they wanted, and Richie would recognize it and figure it out, and it would crush him. Eddie refused to do that to him.

Richie walked back over, flat face, staring off into the distance like he had been trapped in his own body for years by a demon that left, and now he didn't know how to get back into his own skin. He set down his lemon water on the table, which Eddie noted was like the sixth one he'd had all night, because he was sweating like a pig and getting a total of, like, zero percent net hydration.

"Aren't you worried about pissing yourself on stage?" Eddie asked, watching Richie take his straw out of the glass and chug the whole thing. If it was even possible, more color drained from Richie's face. He was almost see-through.

"Shit. _Shit_."

The guy from the sign up table Eddie met earlier walked up to them then, leaning down next to Richie. "You're up next, buddy."

Richie nodded. "Thanks, dude. I'm gonna go to the bathroom, I'll be back."

Eddie smiled. "Fine, but if you climb out of a window and run off into the night, I'll be pissed."

"That's fair." Richie kissed Eddie's cheek and ran to the bathroom, which, thank fuck, didn't have a line.

He came back and sat down in his seat again, as hippy woman was on the last verse of 'Somebody to Love' by Queen, off-key and entirely ignorant of the entire gay community, somehow, if Eddie had anything to say about it. The sign-up guy went on stage, leaned into his microphone and tried to apologize for the woman without offending her, and started to announce Richie. Eddie pulled Richie close to him, kissed him on the mouth quickly before he went on stage.

"Hey. Remember, you practiced this, you know it by heart, and it's fucking _good_. Just don't act like some weird douchebag you're not, and be your normal dumbass self, and you will do fucking _fantastic_. If they don't love you, we can beat their asses in this alley after this. Now, go, you're late."

Richie smiled so wide it looked like it hurt. "I love you."

Eddie pulled Richie's necklace out of his shirt so his ring was visible. "Just in case anybody gets any ideas. Love you too?"

Richie snorted and rolled his eyes. " _Possessive_."

" _Cautious_."

Richie stepped carefully onto the stage, his chest heaving as his heart no-doubt pounding out of his chest. He turned to them, taking a deep breath, before looking straight out into the audience and right at Eddie. In an instant, his anxiety melted away and he launched into it, and Eddie sat back and listened to the routine, noting the changes in his cadence and pace and the way he tried to hide the way his face lit up when people actually laughed, and failed. A lady choked on her drink at one point laughing so hard, and Eddie _loved_ her. He talked about his life and college and being a broke college student, talked about Eddie, called him his boyfriend and everything. Eddie had to cross his legs and resist the urge to jump his bones while he was still on stage. It was the longest ten minutes of his life.

Eddie was so excited he almost burst out of his skin as the whole bar clapped and Richie stormed offstage and right back into the bathroom. Eddie waited a minute, because lord knows he didn't need to see that, or hear it for that matter, before grabbing his bag and following him.

He found Richie sitting against a toilet bowl, door wide open because he didn't have time to close it, curled up on the floor and big, bright, huge fucking smile on his face once he noticed Eddie standing in front of him.

Eddie sighed deep from his soul. "I'm gonna do this, but only because you were really good, and I love you. But this is the final time." Richie furrowed his eyebrows, jaw dropping as Eddie sat down with him on the filthy, disgusting, grimy, disease-ridden, never cleaned, horrendous, gross, awful bathroom floor, touching it and everything. 

He rummaged through his bag and took out a ziploc bag, unzipping it and pulling out a toothbrush and toothpaste, along with a bottle of water. Eddie poured the water on the toothbrush over the toilet bowl and put toothpaste on it.

"I can do this myself, y'know," Richie told him.

"Shut the fuck up." He squeezed out the toothpaste and poured the water over it again and handed it to Richie, keeping time on his watch and giving Richie a thumbs up when it passed two minutes, then handed him the bottle of water to rinse with and then drink. Eddie handed him a piece of gum, then took one for himself just for the hell of it.

"Think I'm high, Eds," Richie breathed. "On the _adrenaline_."

Eddie kneeled and pulled Richie's knees apart to lean between them, kissing him hard. He tried to keep his weight on his knees, but they slipped on Eddie didn't even want to fucking _know_ what, and he ended up setting his whole weight on Richie. He didn't seem to mind, groaning and pulling Eddie further onto his lap and slipping his tongue in Eddie's mouth. Eddie moaned and pulled back, pushing off of the floor and back onto his knees.

"I will _not_ have sex with you on the bathroom floor of a bar. _That_ is where I draw the fucking line." He put his hand up when Richie opened his mouth. "I know, I know, _fucking_ line, shut up. For real, though, I love you. Let's go home now."

Richie was half dazed out of his mind with happiness, but didn't express any of it. "'Kay," he muttered dumbly, accepting Eddie's hands as he pulled him up and led him out of the bar.

\---

They both stumbled into their room later that night, Eddie feeling drunk but entirely sober, with Richie's head leaning on top of his and his hands on Eddie's waist. Eddie didn't even set his key down on his desk like usual, he just dropped them by the door as they walked back in.

"Thought I'd be hornier by now, honestly," Richie muttered, sliding his hands down to cross over each other and pull Eddie tighter to him.

Eddie snorted, leaning to the side and kissing under Richie's jaw. "You're not?"

"Well I _am_ , but--listen. There's different levels of it. There's the constant _base_ horny--"

"Oh my god."

" ** _Listen_**. Base level horny, all the time, that I am for you, always." He pulled away to take his jacket off while Eddie jumped on their bed, seemingly focused on his movements instead of his own words. "When you're around, or not, 'cause I'm a healthy young adult with a boyfriend who looks like a tiny, fucking, Greek god, and then there's the additional horny I get...the other times. Now, though, I'm just really fucking _happy_." He leaned over and kissed him, pushing off Eddie's jacket. "Can we go to bed?"

Eddie chuckled and nodded. "Yeah, just lemme change."

Richie nodded and turned away, taking his own shirt off and shimmying out of his jeans while Eddie did the same. Eddie left the room to brush his teeth and wash his face, staring at himself in the mirror. A tiny fucking Greek god. Huh.

The covers weren't pulled up over Richie yet, instead he laid there with the blanket thrown to one side, waiting for Eddie to join him. Eddie rolled his eyes and climbed in bed, covering Richie's body with his own and wiggling around to get comfortable. He really wasn't tired, but he wanted to lay with Richie more than he wanted to stay up doing anything else. He moved around again before Richie grabbed his hips and made him stop. Eddie smiled and kissed the dip between Richie's collarbones.

"I really am proud of you, Rich. You're, like, _officially_ on your way."

Richie groaned and threw his head back. "Okay, I don't know if I have a compliment thing or if it's from all your ferocious _tossing_ , but _now_ I'm horny," Richie choked, teeth clenched together.

"...I thought that twitch was just from me kneeing you in the leg."

"It _wasn't_."

"Really?" Eddie shifted again and felt for himself, gasping at the shot of electricity that charged through his body as heat bloomed in his chest and pooled deep in his stomach. Richie's breath hitched and he rolled his hips upward into Eddie's. Eddie laughed to cover up the noise he made.

" _Dude_ ," Richie bit out, but he didn't say stop. Eddie looked up at him, checking for any signs of discomfort and found none. He laughed and rolled his hips down against Richie's again, closing his mouth over Richie's collarbone and sucking a hickey into his skin. Richie's jaw dropped so wide Eddie felt his chin hit the crown of Eddie's head, an unbidden whine sounding out into the silence of their room. "Eddie, please."

Eddie kept going, biting down before he let him go. "Praise thing?"

Richie huffed a laugh and shrugged. "Maybe. Wanna test it?"

" _Wanna test it?_ '" Eddie repeated, face scrunched up to mock him. "You? _Letting me_ fucking compliment you instead of getting all weird and trying to worm your way out of it? Yeah, let's fucking _test_ it." He inched upwards, kissing Richie as hard as he could before sticking his hand in Richie's boxers, and laughing into his mouth when Richie gasped. "You wanna know how proud I am of you? How much watching you up there made me want to pin you against the fucking back wall and fuck you in front of all those people? I didn't even care that they'd be watching, just wanted to hear your set more.

" _God_ , you were so fucking good. You always are. It's like you're a different person when you're up there, loud and confident and so fucking hot. I would've got on my knees right there for you, let you fuck my throat right there in front of everyone, just so they would see that you belong to someone. That someone belongs to _you_. Standing up there, talking about how I'm, just, like, a natural part of your life, letting everyone know just how much you love me, and that nobody else could have you. Half the time I don't even know what to do with all of that. Half the time I don't even know how if I deserve it."

"Eds--"

"I would've let everyone know that the kid they were watching and, probably, falling in love with while you fucking _spoke_ , was right there watching with them, and they couldn't have a single fucking _second_ of your time." Eddie squeezed Richie's cock lightly and grinned as Richie threw his head onto his pillow and arched his back trying to get Eddie to keep going, but he wouldn't. "Shh. You're always so _thoughtful_ , y'know, in ways I just don't think about, but _god_ , all of that pales in comparison to how fucking good you are when you fuck me."

Richie cried out as Eddie swiped his thumb over the head of his cock, using this precum to ease his movements. "Eddie, Ed--Ed _die_ ." He whimpered quietly, which was deafening in their room. "Eddie _please_. I-I can't even speak English anymore, all I-- _Eddie_."

Eddie leaned down and kissed Richie's shoulders, nipping at his skin there and smiling as Richie bucked his hips against Eddie's hip. He kept whining, all strung out and desperate so quickly, biting his own lip until it turned dark red. Eddie almost liked it, tormenting Richie like this, would do it more if he wasn't so fucking desperate to get Richie's cock in him. If Richie hadn't ended up being Eddie's whole heart and soul or whatever, Eddie probably would have slept with half of the USC male student population, given that his taste would be entirely different because Richie hadn't set the standard by the time he was fucking fourteen.

He pushed down his own boxers with one hand, doing some pretty aerobic wriggling to get them down his legs and off without taking his hand off of Richie. He swung his legs over Richie's waist and laid down so both their cocks were pressed together between both of their stomachs. "You want it?"

Richie steadied his breathing until he could form coherent sentences. "I _want_ to fuck you. Want you to ride me until your legs give out, then make you cry when I bounce you up and down on my cock but won't touch you 'til you come without me needing to." He rolled his whole body, and Eddie's brain short circuited at the friction, barely stopping himself from letting his eyes roll backwards.

" _S_ _hit_ ," he hissed, pushing the covers back so he could straddle Richie properly, leaning back down and kissing him, hands firm on the side of his face, rolling their bodies against each other and groaning into each other's mouths. Richie reached a hand around and held the back of Eddie's neck like a vice, his thumb and his middle finger pressing against the hinge of Eddie's jaw until his mouth dropped open. Eddie sat back. "Fucking _hate it_ when you do that."

"Do what?" Richie asked, batting his eyelashes.

"Let me _lead_. I was getting somewhere." Eddie huffed and crossed his arms, but still continued swiveling his hips against Richie's.

"I know you were, baby," Richie cooed, leaning up and pecking Eddie's lips. "But I had an idea, and, fuckin'...words to say."

"You always were a b _labber_ mouth," Eddie muttered. "Glad you get to do it for money now. Or, at least, you will." He shoved Richie back onto the bed and covered his mouth with his hand. "But you've said your piece, did a whole set on it. It's my turn to do what I want. You alright with that?" He asked mockingly, but he meant it, pinching Richie's nipple and rolling it between his fingers. Richie shuddered against him and moaned, hair fanning out as he writhed under Eddie. Maybe Eddie was just horny for power. Who knew.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm alright with that. Do what you want," Richie panted, eyes glazed over with a thin sheen of sweat covering his whole body.

"Good. Now where was I?" He paused, blinking trying to think of what he said last. He turned to Richie, who was restraining from speaking. "What did I say last?"

"Thoughtful, not as good as when I fuck you," he reminded.

"You're _right_. _God_ , I love how fucking huge you feel when you're inside me, on top of me when I can't even speak anymore and you just make me lay there and ta--"

"Jesus fucking Christ you're gonna kill me. You're so fucking _hot_ , dude."

Eddie snorted, which bubbled into a laugh that almost ruined the mood entirely. "Don't call me dude when I'm trying to be all, like, seductive and shit."

"We are literally _laying here with our dicks out_ , I think it's safe to say I'm _sedu_ \--"

"What did I just say about letting me talk, hmm?"

Richie rolled his eyes, but Eddie heard the noises he tried to suppress as he jacked Richie's dick at a glacial pace, just to drive him crazy. " _Whatever_. Fine, your _majesty_."

"Fuck off!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from seasons in the sun by Terry Jacks !! 
> 
> four minutes before midnight on saturday still counts as a friday update hope you enjoyed!! 
> 
> tumblr: sunflowersocialist!!


	5. wishing we were somewhere else instead

Their bedroom door burst open like someone had beaten it down with a battering ram, Richie pushing inside and slamming the door behind him, running over to grab his desk chair and lodge it underneath the doorknob. Eddie watched with amusement, tinged with fear, as Richie held the top of the door shut, like his four pounds of body weight would do much to stop whoever he was trying to prevent from coming in. His face was bright red as his chest heaved, hair sticking up in every direction. His shoelace was untied, Eddie noticed, as he laced his own running sneaker, a good two minutes away from having to leave.

"Are you, like, hiding from the mafia or something?" Eddie asked, ignoring the way his back cracked as he stood. "Should I be packing a bag?"

"I did something," was all Richie said, still breathing hard like he only had ten minutes to stockpile all of the oxygen he would need for the rest of his life. "It was an accident!"

Before Eddie could even ask, the jingling of keys sounded into their room and Richie's face dropped, all the color draining until he looked green. The doorknob turned and Stan pushed his way in, the desk chair effectively doing nothing to stop him as he tackled Richie to the floor. Eddie watched them wrestle each other before Mike jogged up to the open doorway and came in, carefully shutting the door behind them and standing in front of it, watching Stan try and choke Richie with a weird amount of calmness, like he'd gone through all five stages of grief on the way over here and had already accepted whatever this was about.

"Hey, Eddie," he greeted, waving from the door. 

Eddie nodded at him. "Mike."

Richie screamed as Stan squeezed his nose and covered his mouth, wringing his head from side to side to try and shake Stan off, slapping at Stan's arms.

"Why! Didn't! You! Knock!" Stan yelled, letting go of his face when Richie started smacking at his face, slapping him back until they looked like two weird fucking roosters and Mike and Eddie just stood and watched. "I hate you so much!"

"I didn't _meAN TO!_ Why didn't you put your do not diS _TURB SIGN_ **_ON!_ "** He shoved Stan as best he could from underneath him. " _You_ ignored the system!"

Stan ignored the accusation and tried to strangle him again, but failed when Richie started tickling him and Stan had to knee him in the stomach and wrangle Richie's arms together to pin him to the floor on either side of his head, using that leverage to push himself up to his feet. Richie's face faded from red to pink, eyes _glittering_ with amusement and a little smile on his face along with genuine awe that he got away with his life. Eddie would kiss him if they weren't...in the presence of company. Especially Stan, whose face had achieved a shade of red Eddie didn't know was possible, and looked like he would kill anyone who made light of...whatever the fuck was going on.

"I hate you," Stan heaved, wiping his mouth.

"It's okay. We all get embarrassed sometimes." He pushed himself up off of the floor and jumped on their bed, kicking his legs back and forth, splayed out in a wide V. Eddie glanced at him, dragging his eyes across Richie's whole body, casually leaning back on his hands and his mile long legs. Eddie let himself think about the way it made heat surge through his whole body, for only a second, before turning to face forward.

Stan clenched his jaw. "I will never forgive you for this."

"Okay," Richie said, bright smile, all teeth and childish glee.

"Like, we are no longer friends. Don't contact me ever again."

"That sounds entirely fair."

"Fuck you."

Eddie looked past Stan and at Mike. "Is this real?"

"Mike, don't speak to allies of the traitors," Stan told him, crossing his arms and shooting daggers at Richie, who was still fucking smiling like an asshole.

Mike shrugged, visibly trying to stamp down his smile. "I've been forbidden from speaking."

"You take orders from the boyfriend?" Richie asked, trying to loop his feet around Eddie's leg and pull him closer. Eddie smacked him on the shin until Richie pulled back. He toed his shoes off and did it again, looping his fuzzy, polka dotted-socked feet, around Eddie's thigh. "That's embarrassing."

Eddie rolled his eyes and let himself get pulled in, putting his whole hand on Richie's face and pushing him down once he got close enough. He grimaced at the feeling of Richie's grin against his hand, pulling away from him but still standing in his space.

"I think he's cool," Mike replied, opening up the door for Stan to storm out of.

Stan stopped himself in the doorway and looked back towards Richie, a livid look on his face, not unlike a dad who just caught his son drinking underage in a movie. "You're dead to me, Richard."

Richie pursed his lips and nodded. "Okay." He pulled Eddie into his arms and kissed behind his ear. "We still on for tomorrow?"

Stan looked fucking homicidal, but his grimace softened. " _Y_ _eah_ , but I don't want to go to brunch. Can we go to that Thai place?"

Richie smiled. "Which one? The one _by_ the brunch place, or the one that's, like, by your English class?"

"By the brunch place," Stan sighed. "We can walk there from my class and go through that park."

"Deal, see you then. Love you!"

"That's fine. Love you too," Stan mumbled, flipping Richie off before leaving, and Mike shut the door behind him.

Richie grabbed Eddie tighter and kissed the back of his neck, nuzzling into his skin. Eddie whined at the chill from Richie's cold nose, before he moved and rested his warm cheek on Eddie's shoulder. Eddie leaned their heads together, knowing he should have left by now for his run, but he couldn't find the want to go.

"What was that about?" Eddie asked, eyebrows furrowing when Richie just laughed.

"I walked _in_ on them," Richie whispered, turning Eddie around to face him by putting his huge hands on his waist. "Like, _walked in_." He spoke quietly, like Stan would hear them from the stairwell and double back just to kill him again.

Eddie scoffed a laugh. "No fucking way--"

"Yes! Yes fucking way! They weren't even _doing_ anything, though! Like, not yet! They were fucking with Stan's _belt_ when I walked in, and he--! He was the one who _told me_ to come to his room, because he borrowed my book I need for class! And, fucking, Mike _was_ at, like, three fourths mast, and _dude_ \--"

Eddie dropped his head on Richie's shoulder. "I don't want to know, but I want to know so _badly_."

"Oh I'm not telling you, 'cause you'll fucking leave me--"

"Wait...like...than you?" Eddie opened his eyes and looked down at Richie's pants, which looked normal, nothing out of the ordinary, but Eddie _knew_ what was going on underneath the ugly light wash denim, and it fueled something in the pit of Eddie's stomach and the back of his throat that he refused to acknowledge most of the time. "There's no way."

"You fucking flatter me, shut up. But seriously, Stan's a lucky dude. If he's into that." Richie pulled Eddie's shirt in the back, where it was tucked into his shorts, to link his hands against Eddie's bare skin. "You still going running?"

"Planned on it," Eddie muttered, dipping down to kiss Richie. It was nice being the tall one for once, even if he would never wish for it to be permanent in a million years. "Wanna change my mind?"

Richie laughed and nipped at Eddie's bottom lip. "I would, but I don't think I'd be able to stop thinking about Mike and Stan. And that's, like, not what I want to be thinking about when we fuck."

Eddie snorted so hard it bruned, dissolving into laughter until his sides hurt, clutching his stomach as Richie set him down and storming over to his desk, pulling out a piece of loose leaf and a sharpie drawing two stick figures on a dorm bed, drawn in linear perspective because the details Richie chose to exhibit were always unintentionally the weirdest fucking ones, and then angrily shoved it at Eddie when he was done.

"They were...on the bed upside down?" Eddie mumbled, looking up at Richie.

"I--They were like, I don't even know, and then Mike, like, fell forward, and Stan was on his back, and they were undoing the belt, and that's when I was like, uhh, hey guys, and then Stan started screaming and I ran out. Mike got dressed really fast; he only had underwear on when I left." He shuddered. "The horror."

"Maybe we should just have an orgy," Eddie suggested, hopping down off of their bed and grabbing the tape, using it to tape the _beautiful_ image Richie drew on the wall next to the window, on the opposite side of their bed.

Richie barely let him escape, grabbing him and pulling Eddie in so fast their bodies slammed together. The low rumbling thing he did and then consistently denied doing vibrated through his whole body, sending a cold chill down Eddie's spine and a searing shock of heat right to his dick..

"No, we're not gonna do that."

Eddie swallowed hard as Richie pressed his lips against the sensitive spot on the side of his neck, gently nipping at his skin. "No complaints here."

\---

"Y'know, this wouldn't be a fuckin issue if you guys just took the fucking truck," Richie complained, trying to fit Stan's huge fucking duffle bag in the back of Bill's hatchback, in with Mike and Bill's shit, because they were broke college kids who insisted on driving cross country instead of just saving up for plane tickets and making everything easier on themselves.

Eddie sighed from where him and Beverly were sitting on a bench a good three feet away, still vehemently refusing to do work, as per usual. It wasn't that Eddie _couldn't_ do it, he just didn't really feel like sweating as he tried to shove, like, fifteen duffle bags divided between three people into a trunk, and they all loved him enough to let him get away with it. He was a lucky guy. Beverly snorted as Richie jumped, unnecessarily, because he was twenty fucking feet tall, and grabbed the top of the door, slamming the trunk closed before throwing his hands up in victory.

"I'm trying to drive home to actually get there, Richie," Stan argued. "I'm not trying to die twenty minutes into the drive just 'cause the truck hit a pothole and fell apart into a million pieces and then exploded." He laughed. "Not that that wouldn't be preferable at this point."

"Amen to that," Mike mumbled, slinging his bag over his shoulder, which, why he needed a suitcase _and_ a schoolbag, for a two day stay at home, Eddie didn't know. He guessed the majority of his shit was for the four day drive, because how could it not be? What else could he possibly need that much shit for?

Richie draped his arm across Mike's shoulder. "You'll be fine, Mikey. Just stay on the farm, schmooze all your stuck up Connecticut cousins, and tell them about the rugged Maine soil, and then refuse to feed them until they sign the deed."

Eddie laughed and got up, not willing to miss out on the group hug that was about to go down before the three of them left for Derry for Thanksgiving. The hug was already small enough because Ben and Audra flew to Maine right after their classes were done for the day, and Eddie hated the fact that it fucking had to happen at all, because they weren't all going home.

It had taken them a total of fifteen minutes to make the decision to stay in California over the six day break, considering Richie couldn't go home with his parents, and Eddie would have rather died than sit alone at a table with nobody but him and his mother over a weird combination of food Eddie didn't want or like because being home made him anxious, and talk about how college is going without telling her anything about his own life, all while trying to strategize what he could fit in his pockets to take up to Richie to eat, practically made him nauseous. Then he wouldn't be able to go back to school because Sonia would lock him in his room like Rapunzel and Eddie would have to saw down the metal bars she'd weld onto his window so Richie could still sleep there at night. Plus, the dorms were still open, and this was the one place they felt safe enough to stay in.

They'd gotten offers, from Bill, Ben, Stan, and Mike, but it would just sting to sit in on some other family's dinner knowing that they couldn't go to their own. It wasn't terrible and they wouldn't be entirely alone since Beverly was also staying with them. Ben wanted her to go home with him, even offered to pay for her flight, but she refused. Her aunt always went to Beverly's uncle's for Thanksgiving, and the thought of standing around saying grace and praying for the departed soul of her dad, knowing what she knew, always made Thanksgiving a huge fucking red zone. So she was rooming with them over break, because they had an extra bed and wouldn't have it any other way.

Eddie smiled as Richie tangled their hands together on the short walk back to their dorm. He also had Beverly's overnight bag on his one shoulder, because she was a 'guest in their home' and that's what was polite, even though she was hardly a guest since everyone slept over all the time anyway. Eddie looked past Richie to look at Beverly, beaming when he noticed Richie was also holding her hand, swinging the chain of them back and forth as they went back to their dorm.

"And there are a pair of earplugs on your pillow when we get home, just in case Eddie decides to be a tease," Richie informed her, laughing as Beverly shoved him so he collided with Eddie on the sidewalk. Eddie did the same and pushed him back, just far enough that he got the message to shut _up_ , but didn't break their hold on each other's hands.

"Fuck off," Eddie yelled, as Richie found his balance again and kept walking. Eddie leaned forward to look at Beverly again. "There _are_ actually earplugs for you, but it's because Richie snores like a fucking truck. _And_ , before you even say you've heard it before, after two nights in a row, it makes you want to smother him."

"Noted," Beverly laughed. "Do you still have those ugly fucking zebra sheets on the bed?"

Richie nodded like a bobblehead. "We don't actually sleep on that bed, so there's been no reason to change them."

"I wash them once a month, shut the fuck up. You just don't notice because you go catatonic watching the washers spin around while I load ours."

"It's _hypnotizing,_ fuck off. You make me sound like a toddler."

"You _act_ like a toddler."

Beverly watched them talk, half bewildered, half amused. "This is either gonna be the worst vacation of my life, or the best. Definitely the weirdest."

"No other way for it to be, Marshmallow," Richie agreed, holding the door for them both as they walked into the building. "No other way for it to be."

\---

Eddie groaned and rolled over in their bed, inhaling the dryer sheet smell of their comforter before burying his face in it. As upset as having to stay home made Eddie, not so much because he wanted to go back to Derry, but because he didn't _have_ a place he wanted to go home to, he did like their dorm. He didn't think he would be able to go back to his own room with Richie. Yeah, their dorm was smaller than his room at home, and the extra desk and bed made it even smaller, but it was home. And it was _theirs_. They didn't have to be quiet all the time so his mom didn't hear, and Richie could laugh and talk and moan as loud as he fucking wanted, because, yeah, people could bang on the wall and complain that they were being obnoxious, but they couldn't drag Richie out by the ear and ban him from ever coming over again, sending him back to his awful parents where he was in constant danger. It was Eddie and Richie's room, not just Eddie's room Richie had to hide out in because his parents were fucking evil. There was no part of this room that wasn't the both of theirs.

"What should we doo _o_ _oo_ later _?_ " Beverly whined, hanging upside down off of Richie's bed. Her arms were thrown over her head, draping her waitress apron on the floor and holding it by the strings.

" _We_ should get up and figure out how to sneak Eddie into the bar," Richie said, digging through their hamper for his work shirt. Or, any shirt cool enough to wear to work that didn't have dumb fucking jokes on it, because that was a good chunk of what was left clean in his drawers.

Bev flipped upright. "Oh _shit_ , you're right! We can't just leave Eddie here!" She squinted like she was thinking and looked Eddie up and down. "You can probably fit through the bathroom window."

"The _bathroom_ window? Do you _want_ him to get chlamydia?" He pulled out a Metallica shirt and took his ugly neon green one off. Eddie stared at his bare torso before snapping back to attention when Beverly cleared her throat. "And give _me_ chlamydia by extension? That's b _iochemical warfare._ "

"I'm not sneaking in a _window_ ," he insisted. "I also don't _want_ to be in a bar for seven hours like you two fucking maniacs. I'm gonna finish my reading assignment like a _good_ student, and then I'm going the fuck to sleep."

"You're not gonna wait for me?" Richie asked, grinning cheekily at his own joke and fixing his glasses where they went lopsided on his face.

"No." Eddie looked at his watch. They were already late. "And if you wake me up when you get home, I swear I'll strangle you in your sleep."

Richie smirked and kissed the side of his head. "Kinky. See you later."

Beverly slid off the bed onto her feet, tucking her wallet into Richie's bag when he passed her. "Bye, Eddie."

"See you!" Eddie called as they left the room.

He waited for a minute to make sure that they were gone, then walked over to their mini fridge and took one of the Red Bulls Richie kept in there for if he had a paper due the next day. He didn't always wait up for Richie when he worked, because he had fucking class and he was human, but they were on break, Eddie didn't have anything better to do, and he really loved Richie. He really fucking did.

\---

"We're eatin' good tomorrow, baby!" Richie chanted as he kicked their door open. Eddie looked up from where he was towel drying his hair, noticing with a large amount of surprise the fat stack of wrinkled bills in Richie's hand.

"Hell yeah!" Beverly screamed behind him, brandishing her own significant wad of cash.

"Did you rob the place or something?" Eddie asked, leafing through Richie's money, stopping when the large amount of small bills turned into several twenties. "Steal the top shelf shit and sell it outside on break? Offer the rich-looking customers your _services_ for a ten?"

Richie snorted and kissed him, smiling dopily at Eddie, like he would when he was high. "Eddie, my love, you know we don't get breaks. But no, apparently the days before Thanksgiving is a hot spot for bars, because everyone realizes they have to go home to their families and know that that shit _sucks_." He plucked his money from Eddie's hands and took out a quarter of it, stuffing it into his wallet, crookedly and half folded, which Eddie cringed at, before he crawled under his bed and pulled out their lockbox.

"So, now that you're home," Eddie began, "what do you want to do? _You_ \--" he pointed at Richie. "--need to fucking shower. You smell like a brewery. Beverly can do whatever she wants."

Richie scoffed as he put in the lock combination-- five, one, five, nine, three, Eddie recited in his mind, like he would forget it if he didn't. " _I_ have to shower?Beverly is the one who has to deal with giving out gross popcorn baskets and pretzels to cologne-soaked assholes making passes at her for hours. She smells like an AMC frat house."

"Richie, you spilled a whole glass of Yuengling on yourself. Even _I_ can't excuse that, and I reek."

"And I don't have to sleep next to Beverly," Eddie added, heart warm in his chest and radiating through his whole body at the care Richie took in putting the money in the box, tying it up with a rubber band and adding a note of how much it was before closing it and locking it. The simple dedication to their future and the lack of mention of his inherent care for it made Eddie fall just that much harder for him. Like, it wasn't a huge thing that he was putting money away, he just _did_ it, like he wouldn't prefer anything else. "No offense, Bev."

Bev put her hands up in a surrender position. "No worries. I'm gonna shower, too, though, then call Ben. I'll probably be back before this fucker, though, 'cause I have less hair to wash."

Eddie raised his eyebrows in agreement. Richie's hair had been growing like a fucking weed since about October, enough so that he put it up in a little ponytail sometimes, when he was doing work or...other stuff that involved his lips around Eddie's dick, which he _refused_ to think about when he was standing in the middle of their room with nothing but a tank top and shorts on and Beverly a mere four feet away.

"Don't mock the look, _Beverly_. It's rock and roll."

"It's bohemian garbage, is what it is," Eddie complained. 

Richie already knew how much Eddie liked his longer hair, talked about it for a good fifteen minutes once when he got distracted when Richie asked for his help with a knot he couldn't untangle, and Eddie ended up ranting about how much he liked it and how soft it was, how it didn't make Richie look necessarily more feminine, but it made him look _prettier_ , somehow, while also more masculine? He rambled about it a _lot_ , when they were fucking and Richie did something so fucking good that Eddie instinctively grabbed Richie's hair, told him how much he liked having something to hold onto, that his hair was long enough to actually _grip_ , instead of just tug at. He could pull it, if he wanted, and he did, the sharp hisses Richie made at the spark of surprise of the pain, followed by the wanton moan when Eddie would do it again right after, pressing the noises against Eddie's mouth. 

"You're traitors, all of you," Richie muttered, grabbing his shower basket and leaving for the bathroom.

Beverly huffed a laugh and leaned down to rummage through her bag, grabbing her little mesh bag with different sized pockets for all of her things. "Be right back, Eds." She gasped and turned around to face him again, leaning on Richie's desk chair. "Did you see the fall Dior runway?"

Eddie's pulse fucking _spiked_. "Shut the fuck up, _yes_ , but go shower and call Ben or whatever, because I don't have time to go through all of it. This is what we're talking about for the rest of the night, fuck Richie."

"Fuck yes! Be right back!" Beverly repeated as she ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Eddie knelt and opened their bottom nightstand drawer, pulling out the fashion magazines he kept in there. He originally had them in the top drawer, but then Beverly asked where they were, and Eddie realized two seconds before she opened it that that's also where they kept _everything else_ , and so he moved them. When Eddie told Richie about it, he laughed so hard he almost passed out. Eddie never hated him more.

He flipped through one again, to the page he had folded in half so he didn't lose it, on the one fucking suit that Eddie actually choked on his own tongue when he saw, and waited patiently for Beverly to return so he could ask for her thoughts.

\---

Beverly did actually come back first, in one of Ben's shirts and shorts that Eddie was going to steal from her before she left. Those might be his, actually, but he didn't make a big deal out of it. Half of her shorts were also in Eddie's drawer, and at this point he didn't know whose were whose. He smiled at the towel wrapped around her head, her bright red hair only barely visible.

"You talk to Ben?" Eddie asked, as their door opened again and Richie strut in, in nothing but a towel and his shower shoes, dropping his shower caddy carelessly on the floor, which was definitely gonna crack one day from how much he fucking did that to it, but Eddie said nothing. Richie will figure it out when it happens, and Eddie is gonna cry laughing when he does.

"I called, but his dad said him and his mom didn't get back yet. I'm surprised he was even awake, it's fuckin'...six? In the morning there? I think that's right."

"Turn around, will you, Bev?" Richie asked, tugging on his towel to illustrate his point. Beverly rolled her eyes and turned, crossing her arms over her chest. Eddie sighed from his very _core_ of his being as Richie threw his towel in the hamper and walked around the room naked as all hell. Not that he didn't appreciate the view, it's just that Beverly was _right_ there.

"Good now?" Beverly asked a moment later, when she heard Richie hopping into his boxers.

Richie pulled a pair of sweatpants from his dresser and held them by a corner so they fell unfolded, sliding them up his legs. Probably for the best if they weren't going to go to sleep right away. "Okay, good now."

"Good." She turned around again and jumped on Eddie and Richie's bed, ignoring Richie's protests. " _Dior_."

Eddie slid the magazine stack towards her. "I _know_."

One thing about Beverly that Eddie loved, is that she let him be as 'girly' as he wanted to be without giving him shit for it. None of the Losers really did, but it was Beverly, who he talked about fashion and boys and other stuff that would push him right in the zone for gay stereotyping, that he really thought she would at least poke fun of him a _little_ , the way they all did with each other. But she never did. Eddie waited for it some days, the dig at his personality he sometimes tried to hide from everybody but her, or Richie, but it never came. Eddie appreciated it more than he could ever properly tell her, but he knew she understood.

"Is Dior the one with that dress you like?" Richie questioned, digging under their bed for the bag of Cheetos, and Eddie scoffed in disgust. _Crunchy_ Cheetos. "The one with the gold that lady wore. "Hans Christian Anderson or something?"

Eddie's heart panged. He'd rambled on about it before, once, when he was at Richie's after school before anything happened with his parents, and Beverly had skipped school that day, so Eddie couldn't pore over the copy of Vogue he stole from the grocery store with her. He remembered it being a Thursday, it had to be. He hadn't even considered going to Beverly's house, just showed up at Richie's and trusted him with that information, with one of the interests he was the most insecure about it, and he _listened_. Richie really love Eddie, _blatantly_ , before Eddie ever knew.

"Yeah," Eddie breathed, trying to hide his surprise, turning to Beverly. "Winter runway, _Helena Christensen_ , by the way--"

"I knew it was something like that." Richie shrugged. "I thought you were gonna jump out of the window when you saw that. Like, I thought I would have to pick pieces of you out of my yard. You _died_."

"I did _not!_ I gave that dress the _proper_ amount of recognition, thank you very much." He turned back to Beverly, who was looking upwards with her eyebrows furrowed together.

"Helena Christensen…" she whispered, before remembering. "OH! The, the gold and black one with the--" she waved her hands over the front of her, wiggling her fingers, "--the embroidery, right? The one you showed me in homeroom that one morning and talked about all first period? And Kurt Hockstetter called you something gross--"

" _Yes!_ With the abrupt stop to the black skirt and the _drapery_ . It beats the entire fall/winter collection by a fucking _mile_ \--"

"Yeah, that's fair."

"But _this_ \--" Eddie tore open his half folded page and scanned his hand over it so it laid flat. "The fucking _peak_ of the entire collection. I cried a little, Bev."

Richie giggled from his own bed. "You did." He choked on his food when Eddie threw a pillow at his fucking face.

Bev nodded in complete understanding, flattening her hands over the picture again, which showed an embroidered suit, which looked blue when you first saw it, but upon further inspection was covered in intricate patterns of jewel toned colors, the model holding a large, heavy shawl-like thing Eddie didn't know the actual name of but a lot of models used in this collection, designed in the same way as the suit. Eddie's breath had been stolen by this one. His blood pressure was through the roof.

"I _know_ , and I get that this isn't the point, but this woman. I want this woman to do unspeakable things to me," Beverly told him. Eddie laughed, but then stopped when he saw the seriousness in her eyes. He waved his hand in front of her face so she would return to reality.

"Snap out of it."

" _Look at her_ ," Beverly whined, picking up the magazine and showing it to Eddie like it wasn't his. "If she came up to me tomorrow and asked me to marry her I'd have to ask Ben to be my side piece. I--It'd be my only option."

"Just marry both of them and then say Ben is the main husband, like a Mormon," Richie said. "You could pass for a Mormon." He closed the Cheetos bag and licked the dust off his fingers; Eddie watched with rapt attention, as a reward for not jumping his bones and then killing him after he walked around their room naked with Bev in the room. He had to be doing this on purpose. To be an asshole. There was no other way.

Beverly barked out a laugh. "Maybe if I changed my entire past, then yeah, maybe. I'd have to ask Ben though, and he can't act for shit. The cops would come and he'd give us away immediately. Too respectful to women, that one is."

"That's true." Richie swung his legs over the bed and got down. "What are we doing tomorrow, by the way? 'Cause I'm exhausted from turning people into alcoholics, and I'm gonna go to bed, and I know we're having dinner tomorrow but during the day? What's it gonna be?"

Eddie leaned against the wall as Richie came over and joined them, wriggling into their comforter. Beverly turned so she was facing Eddie and laid next to Richie on their bed.

"We could get breakfast?" Eddie suggested.

"We could wake and bake," Beverly said. Richie considered, weighing the options in his mind as he wobbled his hands like a scale.

"I like breakfast," he muttered, working it out in his brain. "And I _like_ wake and bake, but we don't have any weed. Well, _we_ don't. Bev?"

"No, I thought you just bought some?"

Eddie groaned and laid between them. "We didn't buy that much, and we smoked what we did have a couple days ago."

"And Josh went home for break already, saw him leave, so that's out. Unless we wanna find _another_ random guy to sell us weed and trust that it's not laced with heroin."

"I'm at the point where I wish we still smoked. At least they sell cigarettes anywhere." Beverly said, rolling over Eddie and Richie and going to Richie's bed, stopping and turning back to them. "Do you care if I wear pants or not to bed?"

Eddie blinked at her. "Not really? Why would we be?"

Beverly kicked off her shorts and burrowed into the black comforter and hideous zebra sheets. "Bill gets weird about it when I'm in their dorm for some reason."

Richie got up to turn the light off. "Straight people, I guess?"

"Maybe," Beverly muttered, already drifting off.

Richie hummed and continued the thread of their earlier conversation. "But no, yeah, at least cigarettes are fucking _legal_. Can't go to a PUFF's for weed, I'm afraid."

"Around here? You probably could," Eddie joked as Richie crawled back beside him, setting his glasses on the nightstand and wrapping his arms around him like a weird octopus, no precise angle and his elbows just, wherever they pleased. "Anyway, all this proves is that the two biggest smokers in this family should _not_ be the least coordinated ones. If me and Stan were the pot people, we would probably have had this settled by now."

"I feel like that proves something else entirely," Richie disagreed. "I don't know what, 'cause it's four in the morning, but it's not saying what you're trying to say. Regardless, fuck you."

Eddie grumbled and pushed his head into Richie's forehead. "Go fuck yourself."

"I have people for that," Richie shot back, grunting when Eddie elbowed him in the stomach.

"Okay, so. No substance abuse of any kind," Beverly complained. "Not even alcohol because we didn't ask Wendy at work and also our fakes didn't come in yet."

Eddie turned to Richie. "Fakes?"

"Yeah. We ordered them a while ago, but they haven't come in yet. Or, they're not finished yet, I don't know the guy is super vague. Keeps the mystery going, I guess."

"You did _not_ get fake IDs. You could get _arrested_ for that, fuckhole."

Richie smiled into Eddie's shoulder. "Not as bad if you use a real person's name, though. You're looking at Wentworth Tozier, sir. Born in 1972."

"Oh my _god_ , Richie. What if your dad finds out?"

"Can't do shit to me here. And if I'm arrested, I'll be under constant supervision, and he won't be able to get more than a few hits in before the guards get in there." He squeezed Eddie around the middle and kissed his shoulder. "'S cool, stop worrying about it. Go to sleep."

"We can go to the movies," Beverly threw out. "We have all the tip money, and Addams Family Values just came out, like, last week."

"Oh _hell yes_ ," Richie _growled_. Like, to the point where Eddie was concerned with how enthusiastically he reacted. "That's what we're doing. We can sleep in until one or two, then go, then eat. Or eat and then go, I don't care which."

"Go then eat," Eddie replied.

"Go then eat," Beverly agreed.

"Great! Now let's sleep, my fucking hips hurt from shaking my ass for all those divorced moms for tip money."

Eddie rolled his eyes. "Can't shake what you don't have."

Beverly snickered, delayed with fatigue. "Amen!"

\---

The first thing Eddie noticed when he woke up was that it was fucking _cold_. For as bony as Richie was, he usually did a good job in smothering Eddie just enough that it kept him warm, but he was gone when Eddie reached back for him. He groaned, squinting through the light to see Richie already up, wearing jeans and one of his stupid shirts again. This one was a bright pink one that said 'First I was a _Mother_ , now I'm a _Grandma_ ' in glittery, cursive font, and Eddie blinked at it a few more times, trying to make it disappear. The covers were pushed halfway down his body, which explained why he was fucking freezing, and Beverly was snoring quietly still in her bed.

"Why're you up so early?" Eddie asked, wiping his face with his hand. He rubbed his eyes to get the sleep out of them.

"It's noon, Eds, not really early. And you kept waking up for classes you don't fucking have, and waking _me_ up, and then I was just too lazy to go back to bed." He closed the tattered spiral notebook he used to work on his jokes and turned to face him. "You never sleep in, either, so I wanted to let you this time. I called the others while you two were out. Everybody's doing okay, Mike's cousins agreed to take over the farm already, said they barely had to look at it before they decided. Georgie said hi."

Eddie put his hands over his heart. "I love Georgie."

"He knows, I told him. I'm his favorite, though."

" _I'm_ Georgie's favorite, asshole. Fuck you," Beverly groaned as she sat up in bed. "Did one of you try and wake me up earlier?"

"That was Eddie," Richie told her. He turned back to Eddie. "I think you have a problem."

Beverly flopped back onto her pillow. "Don't we all?"

\---

Eddie smoothed out the blanket on the floor of their dorm while Richie took their food out of the bags and set it out on paper plates, not commenting on Eddie's obsessive critiquing of the blanket while he was too focused on trying to get everybody's orders right. How Richie was good at being a bartender, Eddie had no idea. Richie huffed when he finished, crumpling up one of the big bags and letting the other one alone so they could put their trash in it, looking proudly at his work.

"I think that's everything," He muttered to himself, then looked up at Eddie. "Now we just have to wait for Bev."

Eddie scoffed. "Please. We're giving her five minutes, and if she's not back from having phone sex with Ben, we're eating without her."

Richie grinned and kissed him. "I like it when you get bossy."

"You do _not_ ." Eddie flicked him in the forehead. "Every time I try you bulldoze me and ruin my _momentum_."

"Because I have _things to say_ ," Richie insisted. "I refuse to have a filter now that I can love you without getting my shit rocked. I will say whatever whenever, and no amount of enjoyment at bossy Eddie can deter me."

"You say whatever you want _anyway_ , fuckweed. I should get you a m _uzzle_."

"Don't make promises you can't keep, baby," Richie whispered, distractedly close to Eddie's face. He looked down at his lips and back up at Eddie, leaning in a fraction of an inch before pulling all the way back when Eddie leaned in to meet him. Eddie could _kill him_ . "Also, Ben doesn't have a phone line in his room. He'd have to get pretty fucking bold to get hot and heavy in his _living room_."

Eddie laughed. "It's eleven o'clock in Maine right now, and nobody sleeps over Ben's like Bill sleeps over at his family's house overnight. _And_ his parents go to bed at, like, nine. Pretty big window there."

"Pretty big fucking window in his living room, too."

"Maybe he's into that."

Richie grimaced. "We're not discussing Honey Hanscom's fetishes on Thanks _giving_ . I can be thankful for _our_ weird fetishes, but _that_ is where I draw the line."

"Shut the fuck up," Eddie laughed, shoving at Richie's shoulder before pulling him into kiss him.

Richie pulled away so he could move his whole body closer, putting his hands on either side of Eddie's jaw and kissing him deeper. Eddie sat there uselessly, hands in his lap, as Richie basically sucked the breath out of his lungs. It was like Richie was trying to speak a foreign language to him with his mouth but not his words, a language Eddie couldn't understand, but he could taste it; the silent syllables and accents rolling off of Richie's lips into Eddie's mouth and depositing themselves in the well of his chest. Eddie pulled back, their mouths making a clicking noise as he did, and breathed harshly. He looked at Richie, his eyes wide like he'd never kissed Eddie before. The thing was he _hadn't_. Not like that. Eddie pulled him back in by the back of his neck and slammed their lips together. He shoved his own language into the roof of Richie's mouth, put his own words in between his fingertips and dropped him into the knot of curls at Richie's nape. Richie smiled and pulled back.

"By the way," he rasped, and Eddie nodded. "What I was trying to say before you _ravaged me_ , was that, due to the hearty Thanksgiving _tradition_ of saying what we're thankful for, the thing I'm most happy to have is you...and shit."

Eddie ignored the way his words felt like a punch to the chest, and tried to make light of it. "Shut up, dude."

"It's not a joke," Richie whispered, smile tugging at the corner of his lips sincerely. "I didn't wanna say it if Bev asked, and rub it in her face that she's missing all that Hanscom Honey--"

"Disgusting."

" _But_ , I did want you to know that. You're my everything, or whatever. And I love you."

Eddie kissed Richie again, slow like he was trying to meld their souls together. "I love you too."

They jumped apart as the door slammed open, as if a camera crew was barging in to make jokes of their most vulnerable moments. Eddie took a deep breath when he saw that it was just Beverly, red to her roots, leaning against Richie in the aching need to be close to him.

"I, uh, have to go...get some stuff from my room. I'll...I'll be back in like half an hour."

They both stared at the closed door. Richie huffed, laughing. "She's going to jack off."

Eddie licked over his teeth, nodding slowly. "Yep."

"...Wanna eat without her?"

"I was gonna do it whether you wanted to or not."

"Thank god."

\---

Beverly came back with, _first_ , her shirt on inside out, and hair flying wildly in every direction and her face flushed. She didn't say anything when she walked in, sitting down silently and looking at Eddie and Richie to say something to ease the tension. When she didn't get any, she carefully unwrapped her burger, eyes wide as she tried to make as little noise as possible and call attention to the fact that she existed. Richie stared at her, little asshole glint in his eyes as he waited for the perfect moment to strike like a fucking cobra. Beverly stared into her own lap as she bit down, chewing slowly.

"Couldn't deal with not having dick for five days, Marshmallow?" Richie asked, fucking _beaming_ as Beverly choked and coughed, face blaring as bright as a firetruck as she stared at Richie like she wanted to kill him, and planned to, once she dislodged the pickle from her fucking _lung_.

" _Richard!_ " Beverly screeched, once she got her breath back. "You can't _blindside me_ like that!"

Richie giggled so hard he tipped over, knocking into Eddie and falling to the floor, flailing his legs as he began cackling, the sound bouncing off of the cinderblock walls. He struggled to get up again, using Eddie's shoulder for leverage and sitting back up, clutching his side in pain.

" _Fuck,_ that was a good one," he sighed. "Am I _wrong?_ "

"No!" She admitted without shame. "But you can't just try and murder me with my own cheeseburger! That's _illegal_." She wiped her hand on a napkin and pushed her hair off of her forehead. "I'm not that depressed about it, though. Ben isn't getting any of _my_ dick either."

Eddie furrowed his eyebrows and tilted his head. Beverly didn't have a--

"Oh my god, you do _not!_ " Richie gasped, scrambling onto his knees for literally no reason. "I want details! I want details _now_ , Beverly!"

"You already have too many!" Beverly yelled, leaving her food abandoned on the plate in front of her. "I'm not giving you _more_ details about my sex life, Richard!"

"Oh my fucking _shit_ ," Richie breathed, eyes the size of fucking hockey pucks. "I can't _believe_ \-- I mean, _Ben_. It's pretty obvious, yeah, but I never thought you'd con _firm_ it!"

Eddie wanted to smack himself in the face when it all clicked for him. " _Ohhhhh!_ Yeah, okay. That makes sense."

Sometimes, as much as Eddie thought about having sex with Richie, Eddie wondered how anybody could talk about it with such _ease_ , like it wasn't something entirely private. Richie had stopped talking about how much he jacked off a considerable amount since his parents found out about him being gay, which Eddie contributed to Richie always feeling like he had to compensate being overly sexual so as not to reveal how much he actually felt deeper down, and then his worst fears being realized and him no longer having to compensate, because two of the people he feared finding out the most already had. Even after that though, between then and him and Eddie getting together, Richie brought it up occasionally, before mostly stopping when Eddie actually became involved in the sexual part of his life, because he knew Eddie would rip his dick clean off no matter how much he liked it on Richie's body.

And maybe he was like Stan in that way, thinking what was private should stay private, or maybe he was just a prude. But then again, Eddie had never seen a prude suck their boyfriend's fingers at a party or go to a random near-deserted movie theater and buy tickets to the worst movie on the board just so they could get a handjob in the back of a theater from an asshole who kept stopping because was getting too invested in the plot. So. Probably not a prude thing. Maybe just a personal thing. 

He didn't necessarily _need_ Beverly or Mike to know that Eddie came while sitting in front of the movie _Gettysburg_ , he really didn't. He could make out with Richie in the middle of the quad, could make jokes about himself and about Richie that either implied something, or directly stated a weird fact about Richie without context that made him seem like a sexual weirdass, more so than he already was, but he would never, just, launch into a conversation about Richie's, like, dick or something. Despite the fact that some days knowing what he knew drove him insane. Like, when Richie joked about his 'horse cock' which, disgusting, and everyone laughed and didn't believe him, and Eddie just had to fucking _sit there_ , knowing that he wasn't _entirely_ lying. He could have _died_. It wasn't something he needed to concern other people with, the sentiment solidified by the fact that Eddie liked knowing Richie was his, and nobody got to see him how Eddie did. 

"I mean, that track and _field_ ass, too, _shit!_ Eddie just runs for fun and I still--"

"Nope! Absolutely not," Eddie interrupted. "We can talk about Ben all night, but I refuse to have my ass appraised for its value while I am still sitting here."

Richie stuck his tongue out at him. "Fine. Buzzkill."

"Buzzkill who directly controls how much sex you have or not," Eddie shot back, grinning from ear to ear as Richie shut his mouth so fast his teeth clicked together.

\---

The silence felt heavy in the room after they'd cleaned up their dinner and put the blanket away, watching shadows cast themselves onto the concrete ceiling and the half inaudible conversations of people who passed by on the quad below. Richie wiggled around next to him, struggling to find a comfortable sleeping position and making Eddie's life a bouncy castle from hell as a result. His chest had caved in on itself, leaving a deep well of _something_ where Eddie's heart should be. He'd had the Thanksgiving he planned, but it was empty. It felt hollow, like an under budget production of a sitcom cancelled one season in. Beverly rolled onto her back and opened her eyes to look at him, no hint of tiredness in her eyes.

"Do you think our rooms will be bigger than this in our apartment?" She whispered into the darkness. "Or, because this is L.A., that they'll still be this size and when we try and fit a full bed in one, they'll just have to go wall to wall."

Richie huffed a laugh, rolling on to his back, pulling his one arm from underneath Eddie's head and the other off of Eddie's stomach, ignoring his protests. "They better fucking be, I need somewhere to put my glasses at night so Eddie's ass doesn't smash them to pieces."

"I hope you have to put them on the floor and you absolutely shatter them when you wake up and step on them literally the first _morning_ we get into this place," Eddie muttered, pushing up off of the mattress and kneeling up on the bed. He manhandled Richie until he was in the middle of the bed and then laid on top of him, frowning until Richie snaked his arms around Eddie's waist.

"You're so nice to me," Richie mumbled, kissing the top of Eddie's head as Eddie kissed his chest, right over his heart. He leaned back again and turned his head toward Beverly. "I'm not worried about the bedroom situation, me and Eddie currently live in a two-by-four. _I'm_ worried about the living room. Like, obviously we're gonna need a sectional, but we're gonna need to set up, like, _rules_. About seat stealing, and shit."

"Aw, and we can have a big coffee table, and our kitchen will be ass, because there's eight of us, but we're still working on a fuckin' budget, so yes. But maybe we could squeeze in a dining room so we could all eat dinner together and--" She stopped abruptly, while Richie tried to swallow the boulder in his throat.

Eddie felt like someone had stabbed him in the chest, and then slowly worked in the knife until it sat in the middle of his heart, and he couldn't take it out.

Why did they have to wish for that? A million people all in the country got to have, especially _tonight_ , and they were here. They were home, yeah, but they were still _here_. And they were there because they couldn't go home. Because all their life Derry had done nothing but chew them up and spit them out, until they had no other choice except to move across the country, just to try and make some sort of semblance of a life from the half digested remains of whatever the fuck they had before. It still hurt, even if this was the place they dreamed about for years.

"--And maybe it won't always be like this," Beverly breathed. It was like she didn't even say it, like she thought it and then because she did, Richie and Eddie thought it too.

Richie swallowed around the lump in his throat. He looked at Eddie, who rolled off of him and laid flat on the bed next to him.

Richie cleared his throat and sniffed. "Get the fuck over here, Marsh."

"...I'm not putting my pants back on."

"We're gay," Richie argued.

Eddie snorted. "And we don't care."

"Right."

She climbed down from Richie's bed and got in theirs, accepting it as Eddie rolled to one side to let her in, and then laid on top of both of them. This was not the first time Eddie has demanded to sleep on the top of their pile, it wouldn't be the last. He shifted on top of both of their bony asses, wiggling so he was more on Richie than Beverly, because Richie was used to it, and leaning his head on their shoulders. He reached up and accidentally smacked his hand onto Beverly's face, brushing his fingers against her face until he found her eyes, wiping her tears without looking at her because, honestly, he was too tired to lift his head.

"Love you guys," Eddie mumbled, losing consciousness by the second, surrounded by his best friends, one of which being the love of his life, and comfortable in the warmth of their weird little lego brick pyramid they made.

Everyone called them the next morning, or, afternoon, from everyone at home willing to call long distance, and they ate leftovers on the floor after planning to get breakfast and then sleeping in until one. They probably would have slept later, if Richie hadn't been shoved out of bed and hit his head on the nightstand, which made it look like someone was fucking _murdered_ in their dorm, writhing around and getting blood all over the floor. At least it's tile, and easy to clean, Eddie thought, as Richie whined like a baby and Eddie cleaned the cut out.

It wasn't perfect, by any means. None of them had a dining room and chairs, or a home cooked meal, Eddie's back was _fucked_ , Richie was bleeding, and Beverly had chafe marks under her eyes from wiping her tears from the night before, but it was them. And for now, they were enough.

\---

Every single fucking time Eddie looked at the calendar it almost gave him a stroke. Whoever invented 'study days' are simultaneously the most blessed people on the planet and the ones who were going to get a first class, all expenses paid trip to hell, right along with Eddie after he enacted sweet, sweet revenge on his fucking English prof for making an entire paper about _Lolita_ and sexuality their final.

It was Saturday. The first day of this designated study period, and all Eddie wanted to do was tear his hair out and go the fuck to sleep. He'd barely slept the last week of classes, when Thanksgiving break ended and they all barely saw each other except for those of them who shared dorms, because every single assignment any teacher could pull out of their ass they _did_ , and it got to the point where if any one Loser began unloading their problems on another, even to vent, it became too much and they lashed out. They'd never all been in so many fights before, Eddie could hardly believe it when he found him and Beverly screaming at each other on the quad about how it was irresponsible of her to register for classes last minute and so maybe she shouldn't complain about her physical science final, and how she's _so_ sorry that Eddie has such a stick up his ass that he couldn't be bothered to be sympathetic towards anyone else.

They ended up calling each other to apologize, like, twenty minutes later, but Richie still had to let him pace around the room and maybe cry a little bit before he was able to actually help calm down.

Richie was handling finals almost too well, with a little schedule he drew up in fifteen minutes that somehow just _worked_ , without him needing to revise it or think about it, and he was going to class, studying, and working all at once without dying. Eddie had thought oh, if Richie could do it then he could too, they're both hard working college freshmen with goals and everything, but when he tried to make a schedule of his own, all of his classes and study groups and study times all conflicted with one another. He would make a plan that seemed solid, but then he remembered one thing that he forgot, and on adding it in, it just undid everything else, until steam was pouring out of his ears.

In realizing it was his last week of his first semester of college, his last chance to turn in anything he'd forgotten, to catch up on his reading, decide whether or not he had to talk to Richie about Eddie sleeping with his stupid fucking English professor because there was no way this paper wasn't going to end up a burning tire fire of lies and half glued together evidence to back up a point he didn't support. Richie had been complaining--or, he complained once, that Eddie was tossing and turning and talking in his sleep, waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and generally contaminating the temperate ecosystem of their bed that they usually maintained, and Eddie felt so _bad_. He tried to sleep in Richie's bed after that so he wouldn't bother him, but Richie refused, kept Eddie close, wrapped tight in his arms so he would feel safer, which made him worry less, but didn't ease any of his guilt when he kept waking Richie up by accident.

He couldn't stop thinking about it. If he did bad this semester, what would happen when he came back after break and had to do it all again, adapt to all new classes _again_. It would be a repeat of the same events, and he'd flunk out before he even got to his second year. Even if he didn't fail, if he just did really, _really_ badly, he would still lose all of his scholarships and have to drop out because he would never be able to pay for it, and he would have to go from job to job for all of his life because no matter what he did he would never love it as much as he loved what he was studying. Average grades don't get into accredited Master's/PhD programs. No degree at all didn't get him anywhere near the field he wanted to be in.

All Eddie wanted to fucking do was help kids. He wanted to be the person he needed when he was younger, the person who fourteen year old Eddie could go to and actually talk to about all the shit he dealt with. And sure, maybe not all fourteen year old kids had a kill count under their belt, but, still. He just wanted to help people. But if he didn't do well, he would be stuck mooching off of Richie for the rest of his life, and he couldn't do that to him. He _refused_ to do that to him.

There's only so much one guy could deal with from their deadbeat boyfriend before it became a problem and Richie got sick of him. Especially once he was finally getting out there as a comedian, and Eddie started to upset him because all he did was make Richie depressed. Then it would spread, like the plague, onto the rest of their friends, and nobody would say anything to him because they're all such good people that they won't want to be rude to him. But it won't be their fault! But Richie will know how the others feel, and he'll say how tired he is of their apartment they all have together, and they'll both move into a shitty one bedroom together because that's all they can afford since Eddie can't keep a job because he just brings everybody down. And then they'll have to move back in with Sonia, because they can't make rent because landlords are fucking scammers, and Richie won't be able to handle that so he'll break up with Eddie and move back to L.A while he's stuck in Derry, and Eddie would have no choice but to understand that, because it was his _fault_.

On one of his weekly shopping trips for him and his mom, he'd see a trashy tabloid magazine with Richie's face plastered all over it that he's shacked up with some weird twink that looks nothing like Eddie because he's so much better, and he's an actor or a doctor or some other shit Eddie could never be, and he'll collapse sobbing his eyes out in the fucking greeting card aisle because he can't _believe_ it, that he ruined every single good thing in his whole fucking life.

Tears dripped onto his English notes as this all came to him within the matter of seconds, and his stomach flipped over and over until his lunch came rushing up his throat. Eddie stood, about to rush to the bathroom, before realizing he didn't have lunch. He actually hadn't had anything to eat since...Thursday, maybe? He shook his head and pushed himself off of leaning on his desk, and immediately fell to the floor.

His world went black.

\---

Eddie woke up in his own bed, in his socks and his boxers, their comforter shoved all the way up to his shoulders. He was tucked in? He pried his arms out of the blanket and inched up the bed so he was half-sitting against the headboard, groaning at the wave of nausea that came over him again. Okay, so that part was real. Maybe the rest was a dream? Maybe he was just having a bad dream. But, if it was, then why does his hip hurt so badly? Why does he feel like he just got body slammed by a fucking truck?

Richie rushed in then, through their door that wasn't all the way closed, his arms holding a bundle of different things: Gatorade, ice, bandages, neosporin, a shit ton of snacks from the vending machine in the common room. He dumped it all out on the bed and grabbed Eddie's face. He was careful not to shake him, but still pressed a hard kiss on the top of his head when he saw he was awake.

"What happened?" Eddie rasped, surprised at the weakness in his voice, as he accepted the bottle of Gatorade Richie was shoving into his hands. It was yellow, which Eddie didn't _love_ , but it seemed to be literally the only fucking flavor in the world since the one basketball dude announced how obsessed he was with it, so he'd learned to adapt to the taste.

"You passed out, Eds," Richie whispered. He looked down at Eddie's hands. "And, yeah, they didn't have any lime, so I just got you what they had."

Eddie nodded. "Thanks. What do you mean I passed out?"

Richie set the bottle down on the nightstand and took one of Eddie's arms. Eddie hissed as he noticed the rug burn on his elbow, which Richie dabbed at with a wet towel he produced from thin fucking air. He glanced over at Eddie's chest, at the V tattoo under his collarbone and above his heart.

"I mean you started breathing really heavy, and I was gonna get up and try and help you,'cause it sounded like you were panicking, and I didn't want that, obviously, but then you, uh, you stood up, and sighed like you were kind of okay...and then you ate shit on the carpet. Hold your arm up like that, okay?" Eddie nodded and did so, watching as Richie spread neosporin on his fingers. He wiped the excess off on his pants and then reached over to Eddie's tattoo. He grazed his skin gently before pinching him hard, with _no fucking warning_ , putting the ointment on while Eddie screamed like a fucking banshee.

Eddie breathed hard through his tired lungs. "I know you did that to distract me, or whatever, but I really want to kick your ass right now."

"That's okay. But, yeah, you passed out. I didn't know what to do, so I just started counting, 'cause you said I should do that one time, and I took your shirt off so you would be comfortable, and like, breathe better? And I hauled _ass_ to get all this shit so that I could be back to call the ambulance if you needed or something."

"How long was I--"

"Forty-two seconds. So I got you ice and electrolytes and shit, plus snacks, because I realized I haven't actually seen you eat since I forced you to go out with me on Thursday."

Eddie smiled at Richie casually explaining medical knowledge, none of which Eddie remembered telling him directly, but he remembered mentioning some, and specifically not mentioning others. Richie never even talked about half of the shit he had in his ginormous head, but Eddie always swooned a _little_ when he did. He was the best person Eddie knew.

"I love you," Eddie sighed, kissing Richie quickly. He opened up the bag of chips Richie brought him and went to leave the bed, stopping when Richie stuck his arm out and prevented him from doing so.

"Ha!" He pushed Eddie further into their bed, closer to the wall, shoving his pants off and then his shirt. "You really thought those sugar lips were gonna convince me to let you leave this bed! Nice fucking try. I called off work, Beverly is filling in for me because I've basically been training her myself since I learned how to do everything, and we're staying here. _You're_ gonna eat these garbage snacks, and then we're gonna take a fucking nap, and later we can go out for dinner. You have until _Tuesday_ to study, you won't fucking fail, and if you do, then I can just fuck your English prof." He kissed the side of Eddie's head. "It'll be fine. _You'll_ be fine."

Eddie wanted to argue, but Richie was staring him down with hard set eyes, stubborn and unrelenting in what he was telling him. Sighing, Eddie nodded and rolled over so they were lying chest to chest. "And you promise that if I fail you won't let it ruin our relationship and run off with some young weird twink that only loves you for your money, right?"

Richie startled, blinking wildly at him. " _What?_ What money? Huh?"

"Answer!" Eddie demanded, pinching the small amount of fat on Richie's stomach. Richie yelped and slapped his hand, grabbing both of Eddie's wrists and holding them close to his own chest.

"No! I'm--" He could barely hold back his own laughter, taking in big gulps of air like a fish out of water. "I _won't_. The only twink I want is you, whether you get old with me or if we both die at twenty from a _terrible_ accident that occurs during our travelling, sex acrobatics roadshow."

"I fucking hate you," Eddie mumbled, pulling Richie as close as he could without them becoming one fucking person, his body wash and the warmth of his skin lulling Eddie to sleep.

He was on the brink of it when Richie tangled his fingers in Eddie's hair, cradling his head with one hand and placing the other soothingly on his back, right between his shoulder blades. Eddie sighed at how big Richie's hands were, how much he liked them on him, how they always felt like an anchor for him, a lighthouse when he was lost at sea.

"You scared the shit out of me," Richie breathed, sniffling. "I never wanna do that again." He shifted, lifting his arms up a little to check if Eddie was actually asleep. Deciding he was, he leaned back to his previous position. "If I lost you... _If_ I **lost you** , I swear, Eds, I wouldn't know what to do."

Eddie swallowed. He felt the exact same way.

\---

"I feel like this is unnecessary," Eddie mumbled, pushing a pillow over his eyes to block out the light. He wasn't even tired, but Richie had become a helicopter mom since his fainting spell, sort of always hovering over Eddie even when he felt it wasn't needed. Though, Eddie didn't mind, and Richie was good enough at it that sometimes Eddie didn't even know he was doing it, just thought going on a snack run halfway into Eddie's cram session was a result of Richie's spontaneous tendencies, not because he hadn't actually eaten since Richie brought them breakfast that morning.

"It is," Richie said, paging through their Drugs and Behaviors book. "You didn't sleep at all last night, and I know because I'd wake up every other hour to the sound of your highlighter carving the shit out of _Lolita_. You need to fucking sleep. You can wake up in an hour and do this with me."

Eddie crawled out of their bed, against Richie's protest, and kissed him on the cheek. "You're a dumbass." He wrapped his arms around Richie's head and tipped it backwards to kiss him upside down. "Wanna go on a date with me Saturday?"

"...Yeah." He leaned up as far as he could without breaking his own neck, puckering his lips obnoxiously until Eddie realized what he was doing and gave him what he wanted, kissing him awkwardly. "What were you thinking of doing?"

"Besides hard drugs? Dinner? We can go see Wayne's World, that's coming out tomorrow."

"...Or we could go see something _else_." He wiggled his eyebrows. From Eddie's angle it looked like two little caterpillars inching their way across the moon, but he got the point. Eddie stared at him.

"We're not making having sex in movie theaters a thing, but...maybe." He kissed his forehead. "We'll see."

Eddie let Richie go back to studying while he went back to bed. As much he would never admit it, Richie was right: He needed this.

He woke up over two hours later with Richie sandwiched behind him, between Eddie's back and the wall, and someone pounding the shit out of their door. Richie was drooling on his shoulder as Eddie sat up to go answer, knocking Richie's head off of him and onto their mattress, waking him up with a start.

"Wh's goin' on?" he asked, rubbing at his eyes.

"Not studying, thanks to you," Eddie grumbled, flipping him off over his shoulder.

"It's _fine_ ," Richie groaned, rolling onto his back. "I got it all, you can just cheat off of my paper."

Eddie rolled his eyes and turned the doorknob to swing it open. "Shut the fuck--"

Beverly was on the other side, her punk rock mascara dripping down her face and making her look like a sad circus clown. Her face and eyes were red, all her freckles drowned out and her whole body shaking.

"--Up."

\---

"What _happened?_ " Eddie breathed, ushering her in and checking the hallway to see if anyone else was with her. Ben, or someone, but nobody was there.

Richie sat up quickly, eyebrows furrowed as he jumped down from the bed and pulled her into his arms. She sobbed loudly against his skin, putting her hands over her eyes so she wasn't bawling directly onto Richie's chest, while Richie put one arm around her back and one on her head, looking at Eddie in confusion.

"It's, it's _nothing_ ," she muttered, but judging by the dry heaving, Eddie guessed that was just a lie. Or just a very poorly constructed excuse.

Richie pulled away and brushed her hair back off of her face. "Marsh, that's the worst lie I've ever heard," he said gently.

Beverly sniffed and sat down on Richie's desk chair, face still hidden from their view. Eddie rummaged through their dresser drawers, pulling two shirts out and throwing one at Richie to put on, 'cause they could try and help her the best they could, but it would be weird if Beverly was the only fully dressed one out of them all. Richie pulled the shirt on and slid his sweatpants from before on, too, and then knelt down beside Bev.

"What happened?" Richie repeated, softly, leaning his head on Beverly's thigh. Eddie pulled his own desk chair over to sit in front of Richie, but facing the door so they didn't look like he was a priest trying to get Beverly to confess her sins to him. "Something with Haystack?"

Beverly let her arms fall uselessly to her lap. "A _little_. Sort of, it's stupid. Like, shouldn't have even come here stupid."

"That doesn't hold up in Loser court and you know it," Richie whispered.

Eddie sort of sat back and let Richie do what he did. Eddie sucked at, like, problem management. He could never think of the right thing to say, saw helping his friends who were struggling as walking on a thin sheet of ice with knives tied to his ankles. If he stepped too hard, or in the wrong place, the entire lake would shatter, and Eddie would be stuck in the ice cold tundra, as water filled his lungs and it drowned him. Down, down, down.

"He just--" She sighed and leaned back in the chair, slumping down in a way that couldn't be comfortable. "He bought plane tickets for the trip home."

Richie glanced over at Eddie. "I thought he always flew ho--"

"Ticket _ **s**_. Two. He got two, without even asking me first. He wanted me to fly back with him over Thanksgiving, too, but I said no because I didn't want to go back home, but also because I didn't want his family spending all this fucking money on me when I was just fine staying home or driving with you guys. I don't--I don't want them to think I'm some sort of fucking, like, gold digger or something. I'm _not_. My aunt would probably offer to fly me out, too, if she didn't _know_ I'd refuse." Beverly shoved her arms in her sleep shirt and wrapped them around herself to keep warm. "I've never been that kind of person."

"We know, Bev," Eddie told her, getting up to grab the blanket off of Richie's bed and wrap it around her. "Did you tell Ben that?"

Bev stuck her arms back out to take the blanket and wipe her eyes with the fingers not holding it. "Yeah, but he just said they didn't think that and that I had nothing to worry about, which isn't the _point_. I don't want to be with Ben and have his family like me, only for years down the line for them to realize all the shit they did for me that I never gave them back, because I didn't--'cause I didn't, because I wasn't _aware_ enough to realize what I could have done to repay them. I don't ever want that! And then he said it wasn't that big of a deal, and I got so _angry_ , and I tried to explain to him how upset that made me, but then fucking...Bill and Audra came in and they were like _oh, hey_ , and I had to--I had to get out of there. And you guys are, like, my _people_ , and so I--I'm here now."

"I'm sorry, Molls," Richie soothed, pulling the little bundle she wrapped herself in closer so he could hug her. "I'm sure Haystack didn't mean it like that."

"I know," she whispered. "It was just like he wasn't _listening_. Like he could _hear_ me, but he wasn't **listening**. I felt like I was talking to a brick wall."

Eddie nodded. He understood where Beverly was coming from, having spent years talking to his mom about his _numerous_ fake illnesses, and having her not understand him, or just. _Ignoring_ him altogether. He got what Beverly was saying entirely, about spending his whole life talking to a brick wall. On the other hand, though, having been with Richie, he also understood Ben. Eddie invited Richie to live with him in his house, in his _room_ , knowing that the consequences of his mother finding out could have been catastrophic, but also not thinking of it as any big thing either. He would do it again, a million times over, for Richie, because Richie was fucking worth it, and he was certain Ben felt the same way.

"Of course," Richie told her. "And I'm sure Ben didn't _mean it_ like that, he just wanted to do something for you because you're his girlfriend." He cleared his throat and tried to hide him secretly staring at Eddie over Beverly's shoulder. "You're the person he wants to spend the rest of his life with, dude, he would go to the ends of the earth for you--and that's not even a fucking exaggeration, like, he _would_ \--so buying a plane ticket is nothing to him." He kissed the top of her head. "It's what the upper middle class _do_."

Beverly snorted and wiped her face, wrinkling her nose and frowning at the dark black streaks left on the back of her hands. "You're right. The _bourgeoisie_."

Richie nodded soundly. "And I would know, having come from that place myself. We suck ass. Now, I'm still being funded by them, but through and through, I am broke. So now I suck Eddie."

"I'm _going_ to fucking kill you," Eddie promised. Seething when Richie just winked at him. "Like, you're _actually_ not living to see 1994."

Eddie jumped as someone ran up to their door and smacked it. Not knocked, _smacked_. With a flat palm, like he thought it was too impolite to punch an inanimate slab of wood. Ben. Richie pulled Beverly closer and whispered to her, so quiet that Eddie couldn't hear, even though Richie's whispering is usually a normal person's speaking volume.

"Bev! I'm sorry!" He called through the door, as Eddie ran to answer so none of their neighbors actually skinned him alive for disrupting their studying. He looked at Beverly, who nodded, and then opened the door.

"Why do none of you use your _key?_ " Eddie asked, letting Ben in.

"I forgot mine," Beverly admitted, shrugging.

"I didn't wanna barge in if Beverly didn't want to see me," Ben explained, sitting in Eddie's seat. He wiped his eyes too, because Ben always hated arguing, blaming himself for everything that happened and letting his guilt take over. He had the habit of crying during arguments, too, which Stan and Mike also did, even if he wasn't involved, but other Losers were, and it got so intense that Ben feared they would never recover. "I talked to Bill and Audra, and Stan...and Mike, and I see why what I did was a dick move, and I'm so _sorry_ I had to put you in that position."

Bev nodded. "I know--"

"I didn't mean to make you feel like that."

"I _know_ , but I don't want your family to think I'm using them for...perks...or. Planes, or whatever. I want to be with _you_ , you don't need to do anything for me just because you think you have to. That's ugly."

"I know that. _They_ know that! I, uh, it was a group effort honestly, in getting your plane ticket. I said you wouldn't like it, then they convinced me, and then I totally disregarded everything you made _clear_ to me, and I said okay, and they thought you were cool with it, that we talked it out, so they bought it and--" He sighed, leaning up to kiss her forehead. "I'm so sorry I did that to you, you don't have to come with me if you don't want to."

"...I'll go with you," she muttered. She looked over at Richie, who smiled at her like a proud dad, a private moment between the two of them that Ben didn't even notice. "But I don't want to make a big deal out of it or anything…And I want the window seat."

Ben laughed and kissed her forehead. "Of course. I'll call my mom right now and tell her."

"Okay. I'll be out in a minute."

"Yeah, yeah. Take your time."

Eddie groaned as their door opened again, this time by a person with a fucking key. Richie huffed an amused laugh, which dropped when Bill came in, face red. He wasn't crying, but he looked like he was about to. He looked small, like when they were kids, like all the years since they were thirteen had melted away and he was just this barely-teenaged person just, not knowing how he got there. His face was all scrunched up, an acute confusion etched into his face.

"Bill?" Ben asked, standing up fully, as if to get a better look at him. "You okay?"

"Yeah, uh…" He fidgeted with his hands as he struggled to find the words. "I think Audra just broke up with me?"

Richie's eyes boggled. "No fucking _way_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title taken and edited from One of Us by ABBA -- all chapter titles are lyrics of songs from [this playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0EuuOVEkpNNWo433QgFFkY?si=MaXBCv1USTWyV497TuCVlw)
> 
> hope you enjoyed!! hit me up on tumblr @sunflowersocialist


	6. i'd be appalled if i saw you ever try to be a saint

_"Baby_ , they're gonna kill us," Richie muttered, but didn't protest as Eddie pulled his belt open, tugging the hideous vintage braided strip of leather, older than either of them, through the loops of Richie's jeans and throwing it on the floor. Richie groaned, hand tightening in the hair on the back of Eddie's neck, chuckling into his mouth. 

Eddie kissed him as he popped the button open and unzipped his pants. "Don't _care_ ," he rushed out, kissing Richie open mouthed one more time before he dropped to his kneesm and winced at the impact. Richie sighed and looked up at the ceiling, blinking rapidly before remembering 'oh, right, it's Eddie that's down there,' and looking down at him. Eddie licked up the length of his cock through his boxers, which were plain black thank _God_ , because if Eddie pulled back and saw Big Bird across his boyfriend's dick _again_ , he would actually just leave the room at that point.

He leaned back and looked up at Richie, whose face was red despite all of his blood, _evidently_ , being elsewhere. Eddie cleared his throat. "We're about to go on a three day road trip with our friends, and we're only stopping _once_ to sleep. And if you think I'm having sex with you in Stan's fucking guest room, you're _wrong_."

"Scared to do it with a man of the cloth in the house?" Richie joked, then paused. "Or, man of the prayer shawl, I guess."

"Shut _up_." Eddie pressed his mouth against the front of his boxers, tasting the salt of Richie's cock through the slit in the fabric, groaning in his chest as he stuck his tongue through the slit and Richie watched him, humming against what his tongue couldn't reach. Richie tried to say something else, but he whimpered as Eddie licked the flat of his tongue of the clothed head of Richie's cock.

"O-Okay. Are--What are we doing?" Richie asked.

"I think it's pretty obvious."

Richie kneed Eddie gently, chuckling. "Shut up, I mean, like--" he checked his watch. "We've got a good fifteen minutes-- _God_ , Eddie, shit--before S- _Stan_ and everyone get here, so I don't know if we'll have _time_ for me to _actually_ fu _-uck_ you."

"Don't need you to," Eddie mumbled, yanking down Richie's jeans all the way down and his underwear until they pooled around his ankles. "Just want you in my mouth."

"You're a freak," Richie mumbled, in awe and without malice, gasping as Eddie licked the already wet head of his cock. He moaned at the weight of Richie on his tongue, licking over his slit just to get Richie to jump like he usually did. "Wh-why do you like this so much? Like, I feel like you suck my dick more than we do anything else. Sex-wise, at least, because we do take a lot of na _-aps_ , Eddie, _fuck!_ "

Eddie pulled off from where he'd sunk down half of Richie's cock all at once, hollowing his cheeks as he leaned back. His lips were soaking wet, too wet, but he didn't wipe it away, liking how Richie swallowed hard as he saw him, knowing that the closer he got to his orgasm, the more he would ramble about how hot he thought Eddie looked. Might as well give him a reason to say it.

He stared up at Richie, rubbing his thumb under the head of Richie's cock, and weighed the question and its answer. He didn't _know_ why he liked it so much. The mere thought of being on his knees in front of Richie with his dick in his mouth had been a good chunk of his thoughts every time he got himself off from ages fifteen to eighteen, and that was before he knew how big Richie actually was. He doesn't even--Once he heard that a girl gave blowjobs to please her boyfriend, but Eddie didn't--Well, he was a guy, for one, but he didn't actually do it _just_ to please Richie. Knowing Richie got off on it was fucking _hot_ , yeah, but he wouldn't do it half as much if it didn't drive him absolutely fucking crazy. He did it because it was _Richie_ , and the feeling of his lips stretched out around him until it almost hurt, drool dripping down the corners of his mouth and Richie dripping on his tongue and the walls of his throat were hot enough that it brought Eddie halfway to coming even on a bad day.

"I like the way you taste," Eddie answered, stroking Richie up and down fully from base to tip. "How heavy you are in my mouth, how far back in my throat you get. I like how full it makes me feel, like I'd have to unhinge my jaw to take it all, but you won't let me. The sounds you make." He kissed the underside of his cock, up until he licked over his frenulum, thumbing the thick vein on the shaft. "Richie?"

"Yeah, Eds?"

"You gonna let me do this before we can't have sex for a month?"

Richie nodded, then groaned when Eddie took him back in his mouth. "A _month?_ There's no way we're lasting that long." He swallowed thickly as Eddie got down to the base, burying his nose in Richie's pubic bone, which was bare after he lost a bet with Beverly and had to nair it, which, _dumb_ , and drove Eddie crazy, because that was what they were best at. Richie breathed, "Speaking of not lasting long."

Eddie chuckled as best he could, causing Richie to let out an unbidden moan that made their neighbors throw something at the wall to get them to shut up. Eddie pulled back so he could try and contain his laughter without actually choking to death on Richie's dick, but still held him in his mouth, working his hand over what he couldn't get his mouth on. He groaned as Richie's hips twitched, another inch of his cock nudging against the back of Eddie's throat. He whined pitifully when Eddie let him go again.

"What time is it?"

"Oh my god, you're _trying_ to give me blue balls."

Eddie rolled his eyes and continued jacking Richie off. "I'm going to if you don't tell me the time."

Richie checked. "Nine twenty-five. _Eddie_."

"Five minutes? You're gonna have to hurry up," Eddie breathed, swallowing Richie down again and relishing in the wail he let out. 

He let go of Richie to shove his pajama pants down just enough to pull his own dick out, whining when Richie thrust his hips forward into Eddie's mouth. He groaned low in his throat as he wrapped his hand around himself, using his free hand on Richie. It wouldn't take long, Eddie knew, quickly working his hand over his cock, thumbing over his own slit and shuddering as he did so.

"Eddie, Eds, close," Richie panted after a moment of Eddie doing whatever he wanted to him, his hips twitching forward as Richie put _visible_ effort in keeping still. Eddie whined, wanting to let Richie just take what he wanted, but not having the time to actually let that happen. "I told you I wasn't gonna fucking last." He swung his hips away from Eddie to tell illustrate his point, asking a silent question on whether he should pull out or not. "Wh-Is--Can--?"

Eddie nodded, sucking down harder as a green light for Richie, who moaned as his orgasm hit him, come hitting the back of Eddie's mouth as he fell flat on his back and buried his hands in Eddie's hair, making all of these little whimpering sounds in the back of his throat that kickstarted Eddie's own orgasm, spilling all over his fingers. Eddie swallowed, licking over the head of Richie's cock and smiling as Richie's hips twitched and he writhed his head back and forth until it became too much and he pushed Eddie's head away.

"Come here," Richie grunted, tugging at Eddie's shirt to get him to stand.

"Wait, hold on," Eddie chided, slapping Richie's hands away to grab a tissue off the nightstand, wiping his hand off and throwing it in their wastepaper basket. Eddie would take the bag on their way out so it wasn't just sitting there for a month until they got back. He pulled his pants up and turned back to Richie, who had left his jeans on the floor to change into new underwear and his own sweatpants, putting the other things in their empty laundry bag Eddie insisted they take with them so that they didn't have to put their dirty clothes in with their other things.

Richie pulled Eddie into his arms once he was within arms reach, wrapping his own arms around Eddie's shoulders and kissing him between his eyebrows..

"You ready for this?" Richie whispered, in that way that made his voice sound like the ocean, a calming tide on the beach, washing over Eddie and making him feel at peace.

Eddie buried his face in Richie's shoulder, closing his eyes and taking a moment to actually think about being in Derry for the next fucking _month_. Richie let him, didn't repeat the question or push, just pulled him in closer. They were definitely late, and Stan was absolutely going to kill them, but he didn't care. He needed this.

One thing to be grateful for, Eddie thought, was that Stan's parents were kind enough to let Eddie and Richie stay with them over break. Stan told them about Richie's falling out with his parents, not exactly what happened, but that he couldn't go home, and Donald and Andrea have had more than one run in with Sonia Kaspbrak and her horror, and opened their house to them like they were just two of their long lost kids that had been living in separate houses this whole time. And Stan's family didn't celebrate Christmas, so they wouldn't have to deal with the awkward situation of being with some other family on Christmas morning, both of them sitting there with a weight in the pit of their stomachs at the fact that they couldn't have this, and making everyone else in the room uncomfortable because they're two strangers sitting in on someone else's family traditions.

Eddie did feel kind of bad for Stan, though, who had to miss celebrating Hanukkah with his family. He went to the synagogue a little ways off campus, which he said helped, but wasn't the same. Richie went with him one night, when Eddie was actually having a brain aneurysm over his psych final, because Stan wanted family there, and Richie stepped up because they _were_ family, and he came back later weirdly contemplative and rambled for five minutes about how much he loved Stan.

No matter how this played out, the one persistent thought in Eddie's mind is him walking down a Derry street, the main road, and just. Seeing his mom. On the sidewalk with someone from her prayer group, and her barreling over to him, grabbing him by the arm like he had never left at all, and dragging him home and boarding up the walls of his ever-raging room fire. And everything Eddie ever owned would have been rifled through in his absence and put back too perfectly, like someone reconstructed a crime scene about the day he disappeared from Derry without a trace.

"No, not really."

Richie leaned down so his cheek was smushed against the top of Eddie's head. He breathed slowly, and Eddie didn't argue, knowing that Richie often said his mint shampoo was 'calming', even if Eddie didn't think so himself. He kissed Eddie's temple, and grabbed two of his own bags, letting Eddie grab his own.

"Me either." He sighed, kissing Eddie quickly before nodding towards the door. "Let's go."

\---

The driving schedule for their trip had been crafted on a random Friday night while they were wired on two energy drinks each while Eddie was half asleep sprawled across Richie and Ben, because he still hadn't learned how to drive, and therefore, he would be the timekeeper to make sure they were all getting sleep and whatever the fuck. Then, once Beverly and Ben decided they were flying out, and Audra broke up with Bill and got a last minute flight out specifically to avoid the rest of them (even though Bill said they parted on good terms), another revision happened now that their party was down to a total of four eligible drivers.

They originally had to take two cars, which Richie tried not to show he was upset about, because it made the most sense to take the truck for all the extra bags, and that meant he couldn't be a part of the actual 'main car' and could only take one or two people with him at any one time, which left a whole other car's worth of people he wouldn't be able to talk to. Once half of their fucking party dropped out, though, and Stan suggested the one car idea, Richie stopped moping and had been nothing but on board the entire time.

The trip would take three days, with them winding up in Derry at around four or five in the morning on the fourth. Eddie didn't love it, because it was literally twenty-four hours of driving, a six hour break in between where they would get a motel to sleep in, and then another twenty-four hours of driving. Each section was broken up into four, six hour shifts driven by each of them, and Eddie would have protested if he had any right to do so, but he was literally just along for the ride at that point, and so he said nothing.

After a day and a half of Stan complaining about the late start, because Eddie and Richie _had_ to poorly plan their pre-break 'sex session' and make them all late, and then not complaining at all once Richie sped literally the whole five, not six, _five_ , hours he drove to the nearest motel, then unbuckled and told Stan to 'can it'.

Which is how they ended up here, with Richie squished in the middle of Mike and Stan on one side, and Eddie and Bill on the other. A king bed was the only one one they had left, in this weird fucking motel in somewhere near Kansas that Eddie didn't remember the name of, but he was pretty certain they would have gotten one bed anyway, because they were dumb and liked to sleep all piled on top of each other when the opportunity presented itself. Eddie always felt safer when they were all together. Not in a power in numbers way, but in the recognition that these were the people Eddie wanted to go through life with, to live with and be with for the rest of his life, and they chose him like that back, always. The acknowledgment that he was among people who chose him, who fought for him, made the anxiety bundled tight in his stomach unfurl a little.

"Eddie, I swear to god if you keep moving instead of going to bed, I'm going to smother you in your sleep," Bill said, punching his pillow to get it back into shape before resting his head back on it, one arm slung over Eddie's waist.

"I'm sorry, _Bill_ , that everyone in this bed except me and Mike are bony _fucks_ who make it pretty much impossible to get any _semblance_ of comfort. Don't blame me because your metabolism can qualify for the fucking olympics."

"Shut _up_." Stan scolded, rolling away from Richie and further into Mike's chest. Richie grumbled and turned closer to turn over to face Eddie, but Eddie refused, already too comfortable to move, wrapped around him with their legs tangled together.

Richie whined. "Edd _i_ _e_ , let me move."

" _No_ , spoon Stan if you're cold or something. I'm too tired." Eddie buried his face between his shoulder blades, his nose pressing against a notch in Richie's spine. "...Am I too clingy?"

"No," Richie replied.

" _Yes_ ," Stan interrupted.

Richie placed his hand over top of Eddie's and brought it to his own chest. "'S part of your charm. Stan would think so too if he wasn't such a bitch when he's tired."

Stan swatted his hand behind them at Richie's stomach, but was too tired to actually hit him, instead slapping what little space him and Richie had between them. "Fuck off."

"Sweet dreams to you, too, Staniel."

"Ugh."

Eddie laughed into his pillow. He knew for a fact that no matter how much shit happened over break, he would always have this after it's over.

\---

Derry was just as shitty as ever, as everybody got out of the car in front of Stan's house. Nobody was around, it was four in the morning, but the depressing quality of the town responsible for all of Eddie's fears and trauma had not lost its own sense of dread, highlighted by the fact that everyone they graduated with was either already back or would be coming soon. The freezing weather got to Eddie immediately, as he left the warmth of Bill's car, and the T-shirt and pants he had on with no jacket did nothing to keep out the cold from his entire body.

They all took their bags as Bill switched to the driver's seat to drop Mike off and Mike climbed into the front seat. Eddie groaned as he threw their laundry bag over his shoulder and they trudged down Stan's entryway, so many fucking bags on them, as Stan's dad whipped open the door and ran out to meet them, probably waiting in the living room just for them to come home. It was sweet. Stan's dad was also just _looking_ for someone to hug, pulling Richie into his arms, and then Stan, and then Eddie. Eddie didn't know a person's arms could be this long.

"Hey," Stan mumbled, resting his head on his dad's shoulder. 

"How was the drive?" Mr. Uris asked, leading them into the house.

"Good, long, had to deal with Richie the whole way, but, y'know."

Stan carefully touched their mezuzah on the doorpost before carrying his bags in. Eddie and Richie stood awkwardly in the doorway, Richie making small talk with Stan's dad, and Eddie watching as Stan's mom squeezed her son until Eddie thought he would burst, pushing a net bag of chocolate coins in his hand and kissing him on the cheek.

"Yeah," Stan laughed, but Eddie didn't know what he was replying to, "but I think we're just gonna go to bed now." He turned to them. "Is that okay with you guys?"

"Yeah, we're cool with that," Richie said. "If your parents are cool with it?"

Stan's mom smiled at him. "Of course. I'd honestly be kind of worried if you _weren't_ tired."

"Thank you again for letting us stay here," Eddie told them, as they left the foyer and followed Stan down the hall.

"Can I have one?" Richie whispered, sticking his long little stick fingers into the net bag Stan was holding, yelping as Stan slapped his hand away.

Stan examined the chocolate coins and then picked one for Richie, and then took another one out and handed in to Eddie. Eddie nodded, knowing that Stan was one of those people who would share anything and everything with people, down to his fucking kidney, but that he was also one of the people who _had_ to pick which of his kidneys you got. Eddie and Bill were the same way, but Richie always had a 'Take whatever, whenever, whichever one you want, he didn't care, as long as it wasn't the last one of whatever thing he had' sort of mentality. Eddie had to remember everybody's, cause he would always ask for something of Bill's, but Beverly would think something was wrong if Eddie asked her for, like, nail polish, instead of just telling her he was taking it. This is why half of Ben's shirts that Beverly stole ended up in their dorm, and how half of Richie's shirts that Eddie stole landed in Beverly's dorm, without either of them knowing. Eddie half suspected that Ben and Richie's bags were interchangeable at this point.

Stan dropped them off in the guest room, which was closest to the kitchen, across the hall from Stan's room, with his parents on the other side of the bathroom. Eddie thanked god they weren't directly next to Stan's parents, because not only did Eddie _know_ they weren't going to be able to refrain from having sex for a whole month, they could stay quiet if they tried, but there was no fucking mishearing sheet rustling and heavy breathing without knowing what's going on, but also they were infamous for having long, rambling conversations late at night, which is something the Losers _hated_ and loved about Richie and Eddie, and they really didn't need to have the people who were kind enough to house them hate him and ask him to leave.

"There's only one bed, _don't_ make me regret convincing my parents it wouldn't be weird."

Richie grinned in the asshole way he did and hugged Stan from the side. "It's _fine_ , Stan. We'll just top and tail it."

Eddie sputtered. "We'll _what?_ "

"I will cut it off of you," Stan warned, not elaborating, not needing to, widening his eyes as big as they'd go and staring at Richie to make his point. Richie turned his hips out of Stan's view so Stan couldn't see it. "Eddie's too."

"Hey!"

Stan grabbed the door and pulled to close it, peeking in and saying, "I mean it," before shutting it completely.

Richie turned to him then, dropping his bag to the ground and opening his mouth. Eddie stuck out his hand to stop him.

"We are _not_ fucking in here."

Richie rolled his eyes. "As _if_. I would never hurt the ears of dear Rabbi Uris and his wife with your fuckin' yapping."

The only sound they made that Eddie was sure everyone in the house heard was the sound of Eddie tackling Richie onto the bed as he tried to murder him, and the subsequent yelp Richie let out before Eddie covered his mouth with a pillow.

\---

Being in Derry was awful enough on its own, without the old high school classmates and the childhood trauma and the knowledge that Eddie once thought he would live and die in this town, and now that he was home, that the glass walls around Derry he worked so hard to shatter were back in place, the statement once again became possible, he also had to re-adapt to being a closeted gay kid in a town that made it very clear it hated him.

Eddie had gotten so used to being out that he no longer thought about it as being _out_. He just thought of it as living, and now that he was home, he wasn't, really, living. He couldn't wake up next to Richie, get up and leave the house holding hands with him, just, getting to be with him, because people in Derry took issue with that. He couldn't stand too close, or look over at Richie and think 'god, I want to kiss him' and do it. Every single time, he had to shut down that part of himself, trample it out until he no longer wanted it, but it was _impossible_ not to want it. Eddie thought he was clingy in California, but now he saw just how deep it ran when he was almost entirely deprived of that affection.

Going back to being 'just friends' with Richie was, just maybe, the hardest thing Eddie had ever done. Like, yeah, killer clown, internalized homophobia, whatever, but that was in his _past_. He could think of that and have nightmares and deep emotional barriers built about it _later_. Having to monitor every single one of his movements, of his actions, his words, so that nobody around them would notice, that was his present, and it didn't exactly come with a return receipt. He had to look at Richie, and see the love of his life, the person he wanted to be with forever, marry one day, and treat him like he was just his friend. It was _humiliating_. Like he was being punished for wanting something as simple as happiness.

He'd thought, when they first got here, that maybe everything had changed. Maybe, if they laid low enough, people would forget the way they stuck out, forget everything they said, thought, _did_ to them, about them, and they could just, maybe, live their lives without risking losing them. Then he went out on a grocery run with Stan and saw Kurt Hockstetter kicking the shit out of another kid for being a 'stupid fucking fairy', until Stan threw a can of yams at his head and hit him right in the skull, then tried to fight him, and scared him off. That kind of killed the dream there.

Eddie jumped as he felt something graze the back of his hand, looking over at Richie with wide eyes and his heart in his throat. Richie jumped too, but corrected himself so nobody really noticed, as they trailed behind all of their friends, struggling both to keep up and to regress back into those patterns they developed the past summer that helped them stay, y'know, alive.

"Sorry! I'm...I'm sorry," Richie whispered, shaking his head and continuing behind Stan and Mike, who were doing, honestly, really well compared to Eddie and Richie.

Eddie could barely stand to look at Richie, it was that bad. His whole body itched with it, heat poking at his skin like a tattoo gun, embedding itself inside him. The map of Richie's hand became as familiar as Eddie's own, like his fingerprints were marked onto the spaces between Eddie's vertebrae, and he didn't know what to do now that he had to walk without him, like he had lost his sense of direction.

"You're fine," Eddie told him, a while later, too long for them to still be on the topic, but he said it anyway, so Richie knew he wasn't mad.

They all ducked into the restaurant, which was caught somewhere between a diner and a formal ~eatery~, that served the best buttered noodles Eddie ever had, somehow. _Why_ buttered noodles tasted different at every restaurant, Eddie would never know or care, as long as they weren't _sweet_ like that one bistro in downtown L.A. that proudly boasted about putting sugar in theirs.

"I just," Richie muttered into his ear once they sat down, in the back room closest to the kitchen that was always twenty degrees above the rest of the restaurant and therefore usually empty, that they always sat in. "I'm not used to hiding anymore. I keep thinking, 'hey, we've been walking awhile, and I notice I'm not holding hands with my favorite Eddie, and so I go to do it, but then--"

Eddie looked around as the hostess went to go get a waitress, until they were alone in the room with their friends, and pecked Richie on the lips. "I know, I get it. You don't have to explain."

"Yeah," Richie breathed, nodding and beaming at him like Eddie was the first sunset he ever saw.

"Please," Stan interrupted, the asshole. "Before I lose my appetite."

Eddie looked at him, but he wasn't Exasperated Stan, as per usual. His face was...softer, like he knew exactly what they were talking about, without wanting to say he did. Eddie smiled sympathetically at him, remembering the conversation they had at prom last year, about how Stan felt like he couldn't physically be around Mike without feeling obvious in his own feelings. Having to be Big Brother to your own fucking self was exhausting, Eddie _knew_ , and now he understood that just because Stan and Mike looked like they were doing way better than them, didn't mean they _felt_ any better than them. 

Richie grabbed Eddie's hand under the table, and, for the first time in his entire life, did as he was told, closing his mouth and grinning like a dumbass at his own lap.

\---

"This is, like, totally not the way you convince me not to get hard, Eds. Like--" Richie's breath hitched as Eddie kissed the hinge of his jaw, biting down and licking over the mark he left. " _Really_ not doing a good job of affirming that we are 'definitely not having sex in Stan's guest room'. Shit, baby, Stan's _dad_ is gonna see that."

Eddie laughed into his throat. "Calling me baby is not the way to get me to stop."

They slept in late on Christmas morning, like the rest of Stan's family, as they couldn't necessarily go anywhere else because everything was closed. There was a soup kitchen they were going to later, but that wasn't until dinner, and they were meeting all of the others there. Eddie had taken the opportunity accordingly, making the most of what time they had to antagonize Richie for being distractedly attractive all the time and also incredibly, embarrassingly sweet. Plus, it was Christmas.

"Fine, how about the fact that Stan wants us up for breakfast in twenty minutes, and that is _not_ enough time considering where we are in the steps that lead to me fucking you on this guest bed."

"Don't need to fuck me. Just wanna get you off," Eddie muttered, afraid, in a way, that his absence of public affection has turned him into some private sex demon. Or, maybe he was always like this, but he just hadn't noticed it, since it was drowned in their usual amount of public affection.

"Why are you so obsessed with getting me off and not, necessarily, getting off yourself."

Eddie rolled his eyes, letting out an exasperated groan and burying his face in Richie's neck. " _Cause_. Getting you off gets me off, I don't _know_ why, dipshit, I just like it."

Richie kissed the side of his head. "Okay. 'S kinda cool."

"Fucki--Shut up."

He leaned his head against Eddie's entirely forgetting what they were doing before. "Since we _are_ stuck here in Cow's Tits, Maine, we can talk about fun stuff to do when we get back to Cali." 

"...Like?"

"Okay, hear me out--"

"Based on prior experiences, I am already saying no."

"No, hear me _out_. What if...we got, from, like, a pawn shop, _obviously_ , a TV for our dorm? A tiny one! Tiny, tiny, but still. A TV, as a reward!"

"Reward for _what?_ "

"Being in Cow's Tits, Maine! God, were you even _listening?_ "

"I _was_ , you just don't fucking make sense _ever_. And where the _fuck_ we're gonna put a TV?"

"In our _room_. Duh. C'mon, we could put it on my bed; it's stable enough. We could watch _X-Files_ , Edward, _please_. Please, please, please?"

Eddie stared at him. "How dare you tempt me with X-Files."

"Is that a yes?"

" **No.** "

Richie squinted up at him. "That's fine. I have all month to convince you before we go back. In the meantime…" He leaned away and hung his torso over the side of the bed, grabbing something crinkly from underneath it and bringing it up, handing Eddie a card, holding back a shiny red bag with little rope handles and a green bow.

"Merry Christmas, dipshit," Richie whispered, curling his fingers in Eddie's hair and kissing the side of his head.

Eddie scoffed in surprise and looked down at the card. Richie rolled his eyes as Eddie dug his fingernail into the top flap and opened it like a civilized human being, not in the crazed way Richie did where the whole envelope was ripped apart until you couldn't tell what it actually had been before Richie got his mitts on it.

The card was. Something. Well, to be specific, what it _was_ was a twelfth birthday card in red, white, and pink, that Richie colored over all the pink with green marker, and crossed out the 12 to write _Christmas!!_ , and then edited the rest of the card accordingly. Eddie opened it and saw a polaroid flutter out, his eyes boggling out of his skull when he picked it up to look at it, expecting literally fucking _anything_ other than a picture of Richie from the neck down, _covered_ in marks Eddie remembered leaving on him, gripping his half-hard dick in his hand, his thumb resting on the head of his cock, which was peeking out of plain black boxer briefs.

"I'm gonna _kill you_ ," Eddie promised. "Who _took_ these?"

Richie snorted, leaning back on his hands just like he did in the picture and making Eddie's mouth go desert-level dry. "Bev, but I made her angle the camera, then stay completely still and look away while I got my dick out and then had her take the picture while she still wasn't looking."

"How-- _When?_ **Why**?"

"A _gift_ , for you. Also, 'cause I knew you'd throw a fit. That's not everything, though." He shoved the bag at Eddie, which looked like it had been in a car accident and was not the one who walked away. "I didn't know, like, the perfect gift to get you, so I just got you a bunch of small shit I knew you'd use. No lube, though, because that bottle I got you last month is still pretty good."

Eddie nodded, too choked up to say anything right then. He dug in the bag and pulled out a medium sized box, gasping when he took it out and found a fucking brand new calculator watch, just like the one he had before.

"I-I thought--? You actually _did_ lose it?"

"Oh!" Richie let out a shock of laughter. "No, I threw that shit on the side of the road the _moment_ we left Maine's borders, but then I started to worry that fifteen years down the line you would divorce me because I didn't even take care of your fucking abomination of a watch, let alone whatever else we were fighting about, so I got you that one to replace it."

"You're a dick."

"It is in the name."

Eddie rummaged through the rest of the bag, feeling awkward and guilty even if he did have a gift for Richie, just for the fact that Richie was watching his every move. He knew that whatever was in the bag with the watch he would love. It could be a fucking plastic spoon from Denny's and Eddie would still kiss the shit out of him for it. He just. He didn't like opening things in front of people, he didn't want Richie to take his flat reaction as a negative one.

"Hold on," Eddie muttered, rolling off of the bed and going into his own bag, pulling out the flat wrapped box he'd been stashing away. He crawled back into the warmth of their comforter and handed it to him. "Here, open that while I do this. Your beady little eyes freak me out."

"You can't think I'm bug-eyed and beady at the same time," Richie said, taking the gift with gentle hands, like one would a precious thing, which it really wasn't. 

Eddie rummaged around in the red gift bag while Richie tore the wrapping to shreds, which was par for the course as far as Richie went. His heart overflowed as he found comic books Richie slid in against the sides of the bag, so smoothly placed Eddie didn't notice them at first, with a stash of Eddie's favorite candy, which he said he didn't like any of but only because he knew he'd get addicted to sugar when given the chance, and highlighters to replace the ones he'd thoroughly drained over finals week. There were also socks, which Eddie guessed was because he had a theory that a woman at their laundromat was stealing them when he wasn't paying attention, a tiny bottle of vodka Eddie guessed he stole from work, and new supplies for the first aid kit in their dorm. Eddie paged through the comics to distract from crying, but then had to stop. They were brand fucking new. Like, just came out and they hadn't even gotten the chance to start buying, brand new. Eddie held the entire bag close to his chest. He was so _grateful_ , not even for the gifts, but. For Richie.

"Are you saying I need to study more, or something?" Richie asked him, running his hands over the cover of the notebook Eddie got him, soft suede-ish cover on it with no title.

"No, dumbfuck, it's to write in. Your _jokes_ or whatever you call the weird shit you talk about on stage sometimes."

The universe lit up in Richie's eyes with the realization. " _E_ _ds_." He flipped open the notebook, which was pretty straightforward in all other aspects, except for the signature Eddie had written on the front.

He'd wanted to write something sappy, or long and winding about how much he believed in him, but that wasn't them and also would be a written record that Eddie liked this dude, which just wouldn't do. So, instead, he wrote, ' _don't fucking doubt yourself, asshole --Eds_ ' and called the willful use of writing Eds down as his name an admission of love in itself.

"I love you," Richie breathed, grabbing the sides of Eddie's face and kissing him desperately. "I love you, I love you, I love you. Dude, have I ever told you? I _love_ you."

"I love--" Richie kept kissing him, ignoring his laughter. "I love you-- _too._ St _o_ _p_! Stan--" Eddie pulled away, reluctant but refusing to admit it. "Stan's gonna be in here any minute. Or, _or_ Stan's parents!"

Richie grinned at him, without missing a beat. "Let me kiss you until then, then."

"Absolutely not."

"C'm _on_ , dude, it's _Christmas_."

"You can't ask me to kiss you and then call me dude," Eddie grumbled, leaning back against the pillows and sliding down so he was lying flat on the bed. "But fine."

"Woo!" Richie whooped, flopping down kissing Eddie for however long they had until someone came to get them.

\---

As much as Eddie loved Bill's house, he loved Ben's parents the same amount if not more. Not only were they not abusive to their fucking child like Eddie's mom, Richie's parents were, and Beverly's dad _was_ , but because they just...had a lot of respect for their kid. They had a whole privacy rule, with these weird rings on doorknobs that Eddie was certain were old pool toys that they just repurposed. Over the years, Eddie sort of got the hang of it, green meant cool to come in, red meant stay out, purple meant he didn't even know what, and orange meant Beverly was here. And his parents just. Respected that. Like wow, Eddie couldn't even imagine.

"What if we just burned the whole thing down?" Richie asked, spinning in a weird attempt at slow dancing, toothpick arms slinking around Bev's waist as they all discussed the best way to get rid of Derry so they wouldn't have to come back this summer. The two of them were hanging out at the clubhouse a good three hours before they even got to Ben's, and Eddie couldn't tell if they were high or this was just another one of their usual weird antics. Anything is possible for them.

"No, unethical. Plus, Georgie would be pissed if he had to move schools," Bill said, paging through a ninety cent notebook he got at Walmart that held all of his book ideas. Or, ideas. Since he never actually got around to writing the book part.

"But _all_ the kids would have to move schools," Beverly argued. "And his friends could go to the same, different school. Think it through, Billy."

Bill's cheeks turned red and he ducked his head down. "Billy?" he whispered to himself.

"How about because arson is a _crime?_ " Stan interjected. "I'm not going through the whole childhood trauma thing only to spend my adult life being shivved in prison."

Richie rolled his eyes. "Please. With _your_ personality, you're more likely to do the shivving."

Mike snorted from where he was splayed out on the beanbag next to Eddie. "That is true."

"Okay, but I don't want to be in prison at _all_ ," Stan said.

"Booo, loser," Bev called, spinning under Richie's arm, then standing on her toes to let Richie spin under hers.

Stan squinted his eyes at her, gesturing to the rest of the room and everyone in it. "That's like the whole point."

Ben sat up from the cozy armchair he always took over when they hung out in his basement, face bright like he just invented the fucking light bulb.

"Wait, wait, wait." He stuck his hand out, grazing across the small of Richie's back so that him and Bev would stop dancing, then pulled his hand back when he saw it was Richie, not Bev. Eddie laughed as Richie wiggled his eyebrows at Ben and winked, making Ben laugh and blow him a kiss. Bill laughed from his place on the couch "What if we, just, moved out. Like, before summer?"

"What do you mean?" Bill asked, closing his notebook and clipping his pen to the top. "Like, move out of our dorms?"

"No, just, like...apartment hunting _before_ we have to move out, then _negotiate_ a lease with a landlord that would let us move in, like _right_ after we have to leave school. That way, we won't have to come back unless we want to."

Everyone went silent. They weren't speaking before, but now the room was occupied with the energy of a shared though connecting all of them. Eddie and Mike both sat up straight in their seats, looking at each other with wide eyes and ravenous excitement Eddie could barely contain. Richie let go of Bev and sat down on the floor, looking over at Beverly once she joined him. It once again proved their theory that they all shared a small amount of brain cells, which Stan and Ben owned almost all of the time. Stan stared off to the side as he thought it over, and Eddie wondered if it was because of his parents. Or, Ben's parents, Bill's, Mike's, or Bev's aunt. They were all good fucking people. Eddie wondered if that outweighed the need to leave the town they saved.

"It would be nice," Richie admitted. "But what about you guys? Like, I can see where me and Eddie wanna leave, but you guys have, like, roots here. Attached roots. Huge trees here with all of your...fruits."

Eddie groaned as Richie crawled over to him and nudged him over on the beanbag chair, sitting so their hips were knocking against each other. Eddie rolled off of it when Richie was almost shoving him onto the floor, waiting until Richie was settled into the center of the chair to drape his whole body across Richie's lap. Eddie looked at him, wondering if Richie could read his thoughts, letting Richie squirm under his gaze until he pushed Eddie's face away to make him stop.

"This town hasn't been heaven for any of us," Mike noted. "I'm in on the apartment idea. My cousins are moving up here this summer, so I don't have to worry about my granddad as much, and I can call him. And, it'll be summer. I'll get a job to pay rent, and I can visit here when I'm off. Or I can _take_ off. It's not...really a big deal."

Stan nodded. "We could get a four bedroom apartment, which is obviously easier than the seven bedroom apartment we _originally_ wanted freshman year--"

"We don't _talk_ about that, Stanley," Richie yelled, over Beverly, who was half-crying half-sobbing at the thought of them at fifteen.

"I had a bowl cut most of freshman year," Eddie recalled, wondering if the fact that Derry got into fashion trends, like, ten years too late made the bowl cut not as bad as Eddie remembered it. He looked over at Richie, who was staring at him like usual. "You had a crush on me when I had a _bowl cut_."

"You hated me for half of freshman year," Richie mumbled into Eddie's hair.

"Because you were _growing_ and it made me _mad_." He set his arm on Richie's shoulders and tugged on one of Richie's curls, smiling sharply when Richie hissed and then muffled the sound that followed. He turned to the rest of them while Richie tried to bite his wrist. " _Anyway_ , four bedrooms, yes. It shouldn't be the _hardest_ thing in the world. I mean, there's probably four college roommates everywhere anyway, it shouldn't be difficult to find an apartment with that many rooms. We don't even, necessarily, have to tell them that there's seven of us."

"I love it when he gets scheme-y," Richie told everyone, wrapping his arms around Eddie and linking his fingers at Eddie's hip.

Beverly got up from the floor to sit in between Stan and Bill, lifting Stan's legs up from the center cushion so she could plop down onto it. They both smiled at her, and Eddie thought about getting to see that every day, in California, instead of in Traumaville, Maine.

"We'd need a lot of fucking bathroom space," Beverly said, as Stan wiggled down to get more comfortable with his legs on Beverly's lap. Bev lifted her hands to let him, then stuck her hands into the ankles of his pajama pants. Stan flinched at Beverly's iron deficient hands, trying to shake them off before relaxing into it. Eddie shivered just looking at them.

Mike scratched his shoulder as he sat up, his spine "We _do_ have the shower caddies still. Can't be that difficult to just...keep them."

"Aw, we could get color coded toothbrushes and all have a little toothbrush cup."

Eddie wretched. "Two. We need _at fucking least_ , **two** toothbrush cups, and that's fucking pushing it. We'd need two bathrooms. And a _hefty_ fucking water heater. Appliances included. We can get away with no washer/dryer in it, we do that anyway, but we can't afford to not have, like, a fridge."

"Fair," Bill muttered, scribbling down everything Eddie said, pausing for a moment, and then adding on when he remembered.

"Are we getting an apartment?" Bill breathed, in shock that they actually agreed to his idea, considering half of the ideas one of them shouted out at three in the morning was usually immediately shot down, especially the crazy ones about moving in together. Now, though. They actually had the opportunity. Because when Richie pitched the idea when they were fifteen and the only money they could pull together was Bill's allowance and Beverly's social security check, nobody was green lighting that.

Richie smiled into Eddie's face. "We're getting an apartment."

He threw his head back and started whooping, which Beverly joined in on, Ben grinning like a dumbass, not even caring that his parents were definitely sleeping upstairs.

"We're gonna need to get jobs," Stan pointed out, "for deposits and rent and furniture--"

"I have money saved," Richie informed. "Like, more than I thought I would. I can put that in. I mean--I was _planning_ to put that in, so if anybody doesn't think they have enough money, I can do it. I _really_ want this."

Eddie's heart thumped hard against his rib cage at Richie's face, giddy and excited while also trying to not let himself be either of those things because they might all decide this was a joke. Eddie wanted to flick him in the forehead. They've been talking about it for _basically_ ever, since Beverly moved back to Derry once her dad died, and they thought oh, living together would solve the problem that someone could tear us apart. They had motive, means, _and_ opportunity. They were doing this.

Beverly screamed a laugh, and Richie's face fell. "We're gonna need some thick ass walls."

Stan's face paled. "Oh dear god."

Richie recovered, sculpting his own features into something feigning happiness to not mask his panic. Eddie actually did flick him in the forehead.

"This isn't a joke, fucknut," Eddie whispered, so only Richie could hear him. "Stop worrying that we're kidding. We're _not_."

Richie blinked at him like he forgot he was there. "Did I say that out loud?"

Eddie kissed him, ignoring Mike calling out the vomit rule. "You didn't have to."

Stan gagged and then cleared his throat. "We're gonna need to draft some sort of constitution, because I refuse to watch that when I'm trying to eat."

Richie pulled away from Eddie to look at the rest of them, beaming. "The Ben, Bev, Stan, Mike, Eddie, Richie, and _Bill_ of Rights."

The collective groan was loud enough that Ben's parents knocked on the ceiling to get them to shut up.

\---

It wasn't like Eddie _couldn't_ sleep without Richie. He did it all the time when he was at work, and it never bothered him before, but there was something about sleeping in a full bed instead of their twin bed in the nice, hardwood floor in the Uris guest room underneath an unreasonably huge comforter while it was snowing outside _without_ Richie that just seemed wrong. He'd been out on 'secret business' since around seven o'clock, and it was nearing midnight now. Eddie was starting to get worried, but at the same time, he knew that Richie would probably come home with either weed, snacks, a fucking TV Eddie _didn't_ want him to buy, or with nothing and no explanation, crawling into the bed through the bottom of the blanket and laying down fully clothed next to Eddie and trying to sleep with his jeans and jacket on.

Eddie honestly didn't care at this point, as he flipped through one of the comic books Richie got him, which felt like cheating because they usually started new shit like that _together_ , or whatever sappy gay shit Eddie thought was dumb to think about but necessary to practice. He didn't remember the last time he read a comic book for the first time without Richie doing Voices and acting out half of the characters, but every time he tried to do anything else to pass the time, all his mind would think about were the storylines waiting _right there_ for him to discover.

The phone rang in Stan's living room, followed by Stan's, "I'll get it!" and the phone shifting as Stan snatched it from the holder.

Eddie snorted at his high voice, which he could guess was probably due to him doing _something_ with Mike on his couch that he was scared of getting caught for doing. The Uris house was nice, but old, and so all the doors creaked when you opened them, which Stan used to his advantage more often than not. When both of his parents were home, and Stan explained this to him elaborately, he always stayed in the living room when Mike came over, so that if he was ever outed and his parents didn't like it, they could never assume they were fucking while they were home. Though, he admitted to making out with Mike when they were home, but on his couch, using the doors as a warning. Eddie didn't know anything _about_ their sex life beyond that, and he genuinely was content with that.

The quiet chatter of Stan on the phone sank into the background as Eddie continued reading, but he jumped as Stan slammed the phone down on the hook, then shuffled and ran down the hallway. Eddie yelped as Stan ripped open his bedroom door, panic on his face which momentarily switched to confusion.

"What happened?" Eddie asked, heart pounding because Stan just fucking sent him into cardiac arrest.

Stan ignored his question, anxious face pausing. "Is that the new Deadpool?"

Eddie blinked. "...Yeah? Richie got it for me for Christmas, what's _wrong?_ "

"You've had the new Deadpool in my house for five days and you didn't tell me?"

"It's not import--Stan! Why did you run in here if there isn't anything wrong?"

The reason Stan came in returned to him like a brick to the fucking face, his surprise shouting out in his features despite his quiet tone. "Bill called a 911. He, uh...he was--I _think_ he was having a panic attack, but he called a 911, told you to bring your first aid kit, but also for _you_ , specifically to get to his house as soon as possible. He said you had to go alone. Richie is with him."

" _Shit._ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from nobody by hozier!! 
> 
> hope you enjoyed!! talk to me on tumblr @sunflowersocialist


	7. two black eyes from loving too hard

Eddie burst into Bill's house without even knocking, knowing his family was already in bed and that Bill told Stan his door was unlocked specifically for this reason. He didn't have the time to be polite, clutching the big first aid kit he brought with him to his chest as he ran through Bill's house. It wasn't hard to put the pieces together. They were in  _ Derry _ , and had just all agreed to not come back unless they had to, meaning his stubborn, fuckweed of a boyfriend, who had just brought up wanting a TV, that had a TV in his bedroom that nobody was fucking using, in his  _ parents' fucking house _ , and a key to said house on his key ring. Eddie was going to murder him. He was going to chuck him off of a building and hope the head trauma gave him some  _ common sense _ .

He ran into Bill waiting for him on the stairs, where he led them up the stairs without saying a word, down the hallway and into the bathroom where Richie sat, slumped on the closed toilet lid. Eddie lost his breath at the sight of him, his whole body frozen before falling down onto his knees when he could no longer trust himself to support the weight of his own body. The first aid kit held up, didn't spill all over the floor like he thought it might as he dropped it, just clattered to the floor as one side of the plastic cracked, Eddie's his hands coming up to cover his own mouth.

Richie's face looked like a mosaic made out of blue, red, and purple glass, that had cut him as it was put together. His nose was bleeding, as he held a tissue to it, but his glasses, set on the vanity, remained intact, which was rare for him in general, but a damn miracle now. He had a frozen bag of peas pressed to one side of his face, and a ziploc bag full of ice on his stomach, which was bare, his shirt thrown over the ledge of the bathtub. His eyebrow was bleeding high on his brow bone, a gash Eddie knew would scar, and he nursed a busted lip, blood dripping down his chin. He had a black eye, but only on one side, which was only a positive because it meant his nose probably wasn't broken.

Eddie let his tears fall freely as he scooped up his first aid kit again, seeing no point in stopping them, it would take too much time. Walking on his knees across the bathroom floor to stop between Richie's feet and look at his face more closely. Richie looked down at him, no clear emotion on his features just bracing through his continued discomfort. Eddie touched his ankle gently, trying not to hurt him while also trying to offer any sort of comfort, a sob escaping his chest when he saw the large, deep bruises on his sides, staring at the larger of the two, which bloomed out close to his navel. Eddie touched his knee, pulling back when Richie flinched.

"It happened again," Richie groaned, breathing in and recoiling at the pain. He gave a cheesy, false smile that just made Eddie cry harder, snagging at Richie's split lip and dripping blood into his teeth. "Merry Christmas to meeeee."

" _ What _ happened _? _ " Eddie kissed his forehead, wrapping his arms around Richie's neck loosely enough that it wouldn't hurt him.

Richie leaned over and grabbed his shirt, spitting his own blood into it, which Eddie was too worried about to actually care about the disgusting factor of it. "Like, what did he do to me, or why did he do it?"

Eddie squeezed his eyes shut so he could focus on Richie, and not the blinding rage he had at Richie's fucking father, and turned to Bill. "Can you get me, uhh, two plastic cups, towels you can afford to lose, rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, paper towels, more ice, and, fucking, calamine lotion?"

Bill furrowed his eyebrows like he'd spoken in fucking Klingon.

Richie leaned back on the toilet. "He means arnica cream, if you have it."

Eddie shook his head to clear it like an Etch-A-Sketch. "Yeah, sorry, calamine is bug bites."

"I don't know if I have that."

Eddie sighed. "That's fine. I have some, but after--" He swallowed and looked down at the floor. "After last time I'm not sure how much I have left."

"I can run to the pharmacy?" Bill offered, gesturing to the door.

Richie hissed as he sat up straight while Eddie unpacked his own first aid kit, which still had the basics, but Richie was past basic. Nothing about Richie was ever really basic. "No, Bill, you're fine. People have gotten over bruises worse than this."

"But other people aren't you," Eddie muttered. "Jeans off."

"Oh?" Bill exclaimed, but Richie said nothing, picking his belt open and dropping it in the bathtub, then peeling off his jeans. He didn't even make a joke about his dick, or Eddie trying to get in his pants, and it made it that much more difficult to stay calm, or sane. Eddie wanted to laugh at his Elmo boxers, but he didn't, instead focusing on the bruise booming on his hip and his skinned knee.

Eddie sighed. "Okay. Let's...let's do this."

\---

Bill looked at Richie with tears in his eyes when he got back, a record speed Eddie wasn't sure even Ben could compete with, as he set an old Longaberger basket filled with the stuff Eddie asked for next to Richie's foot, dumping the towels he got from the linen closet on the floor around the toilet. 

" _ Richie _ ," he mumbled, clearly not knowing what else to say and not knowing how to help. 

Eddie swallowed as he stood up to wash his hands, forcing himself to shut down feeling  _ anything _ that would distract him from being able to help Richie. Bill wasn't there the first time, but neither was Eddie, really. Eddie only saw it the next day, and even then it was only bruises on his chest and torso. Now it was his face, his arms, his legs. Went no longer cared about whether people knew what he was doing or not, probably saw it as a morally upright action, beating the gay out of his son before someone else did it for them. A boy's father is his first teacher, or however that bullshit worked. 

Eddie filled the plastic cup with water and kneeled back in front of Richie. Bill climbed into the bathtub, kicking Richie's belt to the far end of it so he could sit down. He watched Richie like he was a puppy who just got ran over, and Eddie thanked God that one of the people here would allowed to feel the full range of his emotions, where Richie had to hold back so he didn't actually go into overload and die from physical, mental, and emotional pain, and Eddie had to shut down almost entirely to try and fix Richie, the only fucking  _ broken  _ part of him.

"Brace yourself," Eddie warned, pouring the cup of water over his knee into the empty cup and letting the run off drip onto the towels. Richie still hissed as Eddie dabbed at Richie's knee with a washcloth, but he ignored it, dabbing at it again with Neosporin and pulling a bandaid out of his first aid kit. He smoothed it gently over his knee, the camouflage kids bandage standing stark against Richie's pale skin. Eddie dreaded the day this fell off and Richie's scab picking habit remerged. He was gonna make him sleep on the floor.

Bill looked at them in shock, his jaw clenched tight and his eyebrows furrowed deeply. "Is there anything I can d-do? W-What can I do?"

Richie glanced over at him. "Do you wanna pinch me so it hurts less?"

"...No. I'm not doing that. You're hurt enough." He spoke carefully and deliberately, trying not to stutter while also trying to level his voice to not shake. Eddie would hug him if he wasn't so preoccupied. "Anything else?"

"Not right now. Thanks, though, Bill." He turned to Richie. "Tell me what happened."

"Same thing that happened last time, dude," Richie said. "I, I didn't  _ mean _ for it to happen, I just went over there to get some of my stuff, 'cause I thought they'd be at my fucking cousins' house like they  _ always are _ from Christmas to New Year's, but they  _ apparently _ decided to stay this year, and so--when I used my key to get in the kitchen door, and they--" He swallowed. "I'm surprised they didn't change the locks, for one, but they didn't, and they both were in the living room and didn't hear me right away. But then, then they  _ did _ . And, uh. My dad wasn't that happy to see me."

"Oh my god," Bill whispered to himself.

"My mom looks fucked," Richie mumbled, as Eddie pushed his underwear down an inch to look at the bruise on his hip. "Like, I don't know what's going on with the two of them, but she doesn't even look like  _ her _ , anymore. I saw her first, and she kind of--kinda smiled at me, and I was trying to tell her to be quiet but then my dad saw me, and he was. He was okay, at first. Not happy, but not, not this yet."

"Mhmm," Eddie hummed, to let Richie know he was listening, setting his waistband back on Richie's skin, then pushing up the leg of his shorts to get the rest of it, pointedly ignoring his dick for Bill's sake.

"He asked me why I was here, and I told him 'to get some of my stuff,' except by this point I'm shitting my pants because I didn't think they'd be  _ home _ , and they were sitting in the living room in the fucking dark with a dark ass movie, so I  _ thought _ the house was empty. But it fucking  _ wasn't _ , and my dad got pissed because he knew they were supposed to be at my cousins, and started grilling me on breaking into  _ his _ house and taking  _ his  _ stuff because  _ he _ bought it, and I told him, oh don't worry, because he won't actually have to see me again once I leave after break is over, because we're moving--"

Bill gasped. " _ No _ ."

"I-I actually  _ told him _ , that the shit I wanted he didn't even  _ buy _ , because I got a lot of shit with my arcade money this summer, and he wouldn't have to worry about me being in his house anymore, because this was 'the last time his dumb ass will  _ ever _ see me again.' That's when he started getting mad. Then I said some shit about how he doesn't  _ have  _ to love me. I said that it's fine, because there's six people who  _ do _ , and they don't fucking hate me for something as dumb as the fact that I'm gay. Actually, some of them think it's kinda hot--"

"I'm gonna maul you," Eddie whispered.

"One at a time, please," Richie joked, but it wasn't  _ funny _ . Eddie sighed brokenly at him. 

Richie continued regardless. "And that's when he slapped me in the face. Knocked my glasses off, but he didn't break them, so...little victories. Then he, like, shoved me and I fell on my hip, which--" he gestured to his bruise, growing darker as he spoke, "Yeah, and he sat on top of me, kneed me in the stomach on the way down, then pinned my arms under his knees, so I couldn't move? I just kinda froze, and it hurt like hell because he's a grown fucking man and I'm, like, twelve when it comes to strength. Then he kept hitting me in the face. It started with him just hitting me, but my mom started screaming and he got angrier and started punching. I kinda, I didn't black  _ out _ , but I don't remember some of it? It's like my mind shut off. 

"Either way, I eventually got him off of me. I got my arms out and, like, pushing his face away, and he said he didn't want my 'dirty fag disease', and then he stood up and kicked me in the stomach, which--" He gestured to his stomach. "I just ran then, went to Bill's, bled a little on his doorstep, sorry by the way--"

"My dad pressure washes in the summer," Bill mumbled, like he was scared to speak.

Eddie had stopped at this point, leaning back on his heels, staring at the ground. "Richie--"

"You're not killing my fucking dad."

"I don't think you get a choice on whether I do or not anymore." Eddie clenched his jaw. "Like, I'm kind of not kidding."

" _ No _ . First of all, I'll be the first fucking suspect, and you guys will be second through seventh. With my mom in there too. Second, we're not built for prison, and I'm not ready to get lost in the fucked prison system and never see you again because we're across the country. Just, please, fix me, and we can go back to Stan's so I can sleep." He looked at Eddie with so much desperation Eddie wanted to die. "Please."

Eddie shut his eyes and nodded, trying to relax. "Yeah, fine. Bill, could you give us a minute?"

Bill nodded. "Yeah, sure, just, yell if you need anything, I guess." He stood up in the bathtub and went into the hallway, the door clicking shut behind him.

"You fucking  _ idiot _ ," Eddie seethed the moment they were alone. "Was it worth it? Was your incessant need to have the last word worth it? Was  _ I _ \--"

"Yeah," Richie replied, before he could even finish. "You were." 

"I  _ wasn't _ . And I swear to god, Richie, you better have done this for you, because if you did this just for  _ me _ , I will cut your dick off."

Richie grimaced as he sat up further, leaning down and kissed Eddie's head genty, probably because he knew Eddie would  _ not _ kiss him back if he tried, still burning with anger. Eddie let his eyes flutter shut, sighing to himself when he started crying again, because how could he not? Someone beat Richie to a  _ pulp _ , and it wasn't Bowers or some asshole looking for the twelve dollars Richie kept in his wallet. It was his own fucking  _ father _ ,  **again** _. _

"I did it for me," Richie assured. "And you. And Bill and Stan and Mike, Beverly, Ben, all of us. I know I probably shouldn't have, but I  _ had _ to."

Eddie grit his teeth. All impulse, no control. That's who Richie was. He knew that. Normally, it wasn't important, and Eddie could tolerate his lack of thought before his  **numerous** rash actions, but this wasn't buying stick-on nipple pasties for a joke, or driving onto Mike's property to show Eddie stars he lied about knowing the names of and making dumb ones up. He could have been killed. Eddie could have  _ lost _ him.

Eddie fell back and blinked harder, trying to let all the tears fall so he could see clearly, but instead it just made them fall harder. How could someone raise a kid as kind and loving as Richie, and then do this to him? Who could stand there and watch it?

"I'm sorry I didn't think it through. It was dumb," Richie whispered, wiping his own tears with a gentle hand so he didn't hit any of his bruises, letting his hands fall so he could pick at the skin around his thumbnail. "I'm  _ sorry _ ."

"I'm not  _ mad _ ," Eddie insisted, wiping his tears away harshly. "At  _ you _ . Trust me, I'm fucking pissed, but not at you." He leaned upwards so he was closer to Richie and took his hands in his. "I don't want you getting hurt. At  _ all _ , let alone getting hurt because of me.  _ Ever _ . Even if I'm only one sixth of the reason you do it." He leaned up and kissed Richie, whose bottom lip was swollen and starting to scab, but he kissed back anyway.

Eddie took Richie's face in his hands, gently, because he didn't know where, exactly he was hurt, if bruises hadn't emerged yet, and touched their foreheads together. "You're the most important thing in my fucking life, Richie. You don't have to do  _ shit _ for me, or any of us, to make a point, or  _ anything _ you think you have to do. We would rather pay for your fucking therapy than your funeral, do you  _ get that? _ "

"I get it."

"I know you wanted closure, or whatever, but if this is how you had to get it…" He blinked and more tears fell. " _ Nothing _ , no fucking closure or point to make or fuck all, matters more than you do.  _ Nothing _ ." Richie held Eddie's hands on either side of his head once Eddie started sobbing again. He didn't think he felt that scared in a long time. "I love you so  _ much _ . You, you've come so--You've done so  _ much _ in the past year alone, and your dad is never, ever gonna get to know it. The next time he hears about you is when you're fucking famous, or when I'm standing over him, burying him alive."

Richie laughed, and then clutched his stomach in pain. "Okay, Eds."

"I fucking mean it. You're not their kid anymore. They lost the Richie copyright."

Richie smiled at him, whispering, "They kinda made the patent, though."

Eddie smiled as much as he could while it felt like he couldn't breathe. "Doesn't matter, your ours now. Gonna write 'Property of Losers Club' on your forehead that way your parents can't make any claim towards you once you're gone from here for good."

"You really like to own me, don't you?"

Eddie clenched his jaw and flared his nostrils, turning towards the bathroom door. "Bill, you can come in now!"

"My Eddie," Richie mumbled, in a weird voice Eddie didn't think was meant for him. Like Richie was just appreciating it for himself, as Bill shoved in the room. 

"Thank god," Bill breathed, climbing back into the bathtub without being asked. "I thought that my parents were gonna come out and ask why I was standing in front of the bathroom like a club bouncer."

"Nice," Richie smiled, "I'm a clubber."

"You're a dumbass is what you are," Eddie argued, bracketing Richie's legs in with his and sitting on his lap, careful to angle his hips forward so he didn't put his weight on Richie's knee, but far back enough that he didn't lean against the bruises on Richie's side. It was a balancing act, but Richie melted into it, grasping Eddie's thighs over his pajama pants before sliding his hips up and settling them on his waist. The intimacy of being able to share the same space with Richie in a way he hadn't been able to just minutes ago made a difference, untangled the ball of feelings Eddie had tying themselves together in his chest.

Bill cleared his throat to remind them he existed, which Eddie honestly appreciated because he kind of  _ did _ forget he was there. He nodded, grateful for a distraction from the anger so deep set in his chest he could feel it in his fucking throat. He wanted to scream, wanted to rip Richie's father apart until not even God recognized him. He pictured Richie's mom, passive and complicit, wiping Richie's blood off of the checkered kitchen tile, not saying a fucking word. Did she even care? Did she even feel fucking guilty that she has her own son's blood on her hands?

"What do you wanna talk about, Billiam?" Richie asked, lolling his head to the side. Eddie poked him in the cheek to get him to look back over, showing him the peroxide covered wash cloth and making eye contact with him to show it might hurt. Richie nodded and leaned back, bracing himself.

"No idea, but I wasn't sitting here and just... _ observing _ whatever y'all were just doing."

Richie smiled, flinching when Eddie touched his split lip. "'Course not. Eddie doesn't like to share, anyway." He grimaced at his own words. "Sorry, Billy, forgot about She Who Breaks Hearts."

Bill chuckled, trying to paint over the worried look on his face Eddie saw full force every time he looked over. "She didn't break my heart, Richie, we're still cool." He played with the hem of his sleep shirt. "It's not like I've...talked about it that much, either…for you to even remember."

"Yeah, or mentioned it,  _ at all _ ," Richie snorted. "You literally just told us it happened, and then never brought it up after that...Then again, she did get kinda distant towards the end there, so it makes sense to not, like, obsess over it. What happened?"

Eddie squinted at Richie as he wiped the last of the blood off of Richie's lip and started cleaning out his eyebrow. Eddie didn't even  _ notice _ Audra 'get kinda distant'. He noticed that she hadn't been hanging out with them as much, but he was so focused on school and class and himself  _ and _ Richie, and making sure he even had enough time to see everyone. He didn't even factor in time to analyze the dynamics of everybody else. And Richie had a fucking  _ job _ . Where did he find the fucking time?

Ben scratched at the back of his head. "She, uh, broke up with me for a girl in her acting troupe?"

"No fucking  _ way, _ " Richie gasped, followed by another hiss as he accidentally pressed up into Eddie's touch on his bruises. "Sorry, sorry."

"Don't apologize," Eddie told him, continuing what he was doing. "It's not your  _ fault _ . Does Audra, like,  _ know _ , that you--That we know now?" 

"Oh, shit, yeah." Richie nodded, forgetting  _ entirely _ that Eddie was holding a washcloth to a cut on his forehead, and shouting out when it dragged against his skin. " _ Fuck! _ "

"Oh, no! She told me I could tell you that! I'm not, like, going behind her back or anything, outing her. Promise."

"Okay," Eddie mumbled, bringing his focus back to Richie's cut on his forehead. It wasn't that deep, but he might never actually get his eyebrow back in that same spot again. "You can keep going, by the way." He looked down at Richie's quirked (complete) eyebrow. "What? It  _ soothes  _ me to hear about other people's lives. Calms my bloodthirst." 

Richie smiled. "If you say so."

Bill laughed and nodded. "No, but yeah, she said, like...she liked me in the first place because I was all...weird...when I asked her to prom, like...awkward, and not all smug and gross like the guys her other friends were going with, and because when she asked me  _ why  _ I asked her to prom, I said it was because I thought she was really pretty and she read my favorite book, which--"

"Oh my god if you go into a rant about the fucking  _ Giver  _ again, I swear, I'm actually gonna brain myself on the sink," Richie groaned.

Bill mockingly mouthed his words and rolled his eyes, but he didn't. Argue. "Fuck  _ off _ . She said that nobody noticed stuff like that about her before, and that I was nice without  _ wanting  _ to get with her, necessarily, or whatever, and  _ nng _ ." He groaned and curled up into a ball and fell over in the tub, like a dramatic armadillo, before sighing and slowly sitting up. "She said it made  _ sense  _ for me to be her boyfriend, because I was--" He took his hands away from his face to make air quotes, "--'normal looking enough' to not be suspicious that she was overcompensating."

Eddie and Richie both laughed until Eddie thought Richie was going to tip over and take both of them down.

"St **_op_ ** ," Bill whined, lying down in the bathtub longways so he could stretch out longways. "I'm gonna die here."

"She's  _ right _ , dude!" Richie giggled, burying his eyes in Eddie's shoulder. "It's not a bad thing! You're cute as shit, Denbrough, but you're not, like,  _ overly  _ hot. Like you're not a bodybuilding, orange-skinned, jock in a thong. If you  _ were _ , that would have been way obvious. You're one of those soft, literature loving types, y'know, the thing you base your personality on?"

Bill's hand shot up out of the tub to flip Richie off.

"Yeah, that." He wrinkled his nose up as Eddie ran the washcloth over his face, which was swollen, but wiping off all the tears and dried blood did make him look a little better. "So if someone asked, or said, like, 'he's no John Stamos,' she could be like yeah, but he  _ reads _ . Makes his dick bigger."

"I  _ fucking  _ hate you." Bill rolled onto his side, the scratch of him moving Richie's belt buckle and scratching it against the porcelain made Eddie want to vomit. "How are you feeling?"

"Better than you right now, probably."

"Fair."

"But you had to  _ know  _ that at some point, right?" Eddie asked, standing up off of Richie's lap to look at him. "I mean,  _ Bill _ . You're kind of everyone's entry level crush. Like, you were all of our first crushes."

Richie nodded. "He's right. Even Mike admitted to it when I asked him about it."

"...Mike didn't have a crush until he was thirteen years old?"

"Well, no, but he was a homeschooled farm boy. Who was he gonna have a crush on?" Richie questioned, as Eddie rinsed out the washcloth and set it aside, kneeling down to reorganize his first aid kit.

"I don't  _ know _ , the  _ horses? _ "

"Please. If he'd seen what a  _ horse  _ was packing, there's no way in hell his first crush would have been you."

Eddie considered pouring peroxide in his eyes to wipe the mental image, but decided against it. If he did that, Richie would be responsible for his wardrobe for the rest of his life. He wouldn't be able to handle that. "I'm going to kill myself. I will just have to die here."

''You don't know what my dick looks like!"

"Compared to a  _ horse?  _ Tiny. Your dick would look tiny. Fucking micro-meat down there compared to a horse."

Eddie shoved a bottle of Tylenol at Richie. "Take two of those and shut  _ up  _ about horses."

Richie agreed and took them, swallowing them dry, knowing how much Eddie  _ hated  _ it because he could burn a hole in his throat, but at this point it would be preferred to hearing any more of this conversation.

He took the cup of water Eddie handed him."But yeah, you're everyone's first crush, dude. Based on the history, though, you might just be a universal sexuality beacon. Like. Girls like you and find out they either like girls or  _ also  _ like girls, and guys like you and find out they don't like girls...or that they don't  _ only  _ like girls."

Bill is silent for a long moment, forcibly not looking at either of them. "Was I Ben's first crush?"

Eddie took the Tylenol back and shoved it in the kit, snapping the buckles shut and getting ready to leave. "Probably. It's a theory we've been working on for years but never confirmed."

"A  _ theory _ ?"

Richie stood then, stiff as hell, reaching out his hand to help Bill up. " _ We  _ think that when Ben  _ would have  _ figured out his shit, that he was too busy focusing on competing with you for Bev's tween girl heart, and then never realized his  _ minuscule  _ crush on  _ your  _ tween boy heart. It's  _ science _ ."

Bill stared at them. "You're fucking kidding, right?"

"He has, or he  _ had _ , a book of poems from, like, right before eighth grade until you and Bev broke up, and you really can't tell who he's writing the poems about sometimes. And then when Stan pointed it out, he got weird and never let us see it again," Eddie explained. "I think Stan still feels bad about that, honestly, but he never wanted to bring it up in case Ben, like, freaked out."

Richie left the bathroom first, and Eddie and Bill followed, so worried about Richie that they squeezed through the doorway together at the same time, which Eddie was certain made his collarbones pop off of his skeleton before settling back once they were in the hall. Richie grumbled and yawned, turning and hugging Bill.

"Thanks Billy," he whispered.

"No problem, Rich," Bill said back, kissing Richie on the side of the head. "Do you wanna sleep over here? I can give you clothes, if you want."

"Oh my god,  _ please _ ," Richie breathed, folding his hands and jokingly praying to god in thanks as Bill laughed and led them to his room.

The seven of them threw a party when Bill's parents bought themselves a king bed in the ninth grade and gave Bill their old queen sized one, all laying on top of one another and falling asleep like that while Richie made jokes about how Bill was conceived on ' _ this. same.  _ **_mattress_ ** ' and they tried not to get popcorn kernels on it while they watched  _ Saved by the Bell _ reruns at two in the morning.

Now, Eddie thanked Bill's parents and the income tax they used to buy their bed, as he fell onto Bill's, sinking into the memory foam mattress topper, burrowing under his green and orange plaid duvet and sinking into his flannel sheets. Richie followed soon after, pulling Eddie over to him and Bill behind them, as he shut the door and turned his lamp on, pulling his socks off before climbing in the bed with them. Richie relaxed but Bill didn't, his shoulders up around his neck in tension.

"If I say something right now, do you promise not to say  _ anything  _ until I say you can say something?" Bill whispered.

Eddie stared at him. "...Sure."

Richie rolled over so he was flat on his back next to Bill, with Eddie following so they were all shoulder to shoulder. "No promises."

"...That's fine, you're Richie," Bill said. "It's expected."

"Thank you." Richie smiled, pleased with his exoneration. "But also, spill. We want to help you with your problems."

Bill mumbled. "It's not...really...a  _ problem _ , I'm just...thinking...a lot recently. About...everything that happened with Audra, and how we broke up because she had feelings for another girl...and I was like...why is  _ everyone _ around me gay?"

Richie snorted, his shoulders shaking with laughter. "That's...the  _ funniest _ thing I've ever heard."

"I know!" Bill agreed. "But I started  _ wondering _ , like,  _ why _ , and it, like, got me to the question of am  _ I _ even straight? Which led me down a whole rabbit hole of shit that...ended up with me...kind of coming to the conclusion that I'm  _ not _ ...as straight as I might have thought? Like, it's so...I'm, like af-fraid to say it out l-loud." Eddie listened to Bill heave, before it went on for too long and both him and Richie sat up. Richie winced in pain, but stood, crawling over Bill, who was hyperventilating, and shoving him in the middle of the bed between them, so they were all sitting. 

"You gotta breathe, dude," Richie told him, sitting criss cross applesauce on the bed, inhaling and exhaling slowly like they all learned how to do when each other started to panic. "Okay? You don't have to be worried about anything. We're basically all gay at this point, you don't have to freak out about anything."

"B-But m-my  _ parents _ ." He ejected the words out of his mouth like they were prying his jaw apart to be spoken, but his teeth had tried to hold them back.

"You can tell them, if you want, or you don't have to at all," Eddie assured him.

"And you  _ know  _ they already told you that they loved you no matter who  _ you  _ loved after that one episode of L.A. Law." Richie told him. "Your parents aren't the kind of people to get all Wentworth about that kind of stuff. They almost lost their kid, and that,  _ that  _ was just the time they knew about. They're not gonna just willingly give the other one up."

Eddie just nodded, knowing he was better at physically comforting his friends than he was with words. Richie was the best with words. He always seemed to come to conclusions way quicker than the rest of them could. Bill and Ben talked in romanticism and grandiose metaphors when they tried to help, which sometimes helped all of them, let them see reality through rose colored glasses, but Richie was, for the most irrational person they knew, the most rational one when it came to their lives, the reality of it.

If Richie hadn't wanted to be a comedian, he'd really be a good lawyer. Eddie cringed at the image of lawyer Richie, with an oversized suit and wild ass hair, arguing angrily in a way he wouldn't anywhere else. He tried to picture, like, accomplished, established career Richie, in a sleek suit, with a  _ briefcase _ , waving his hands around in front of a jury and yelling with the dedicated voice he used whenever he got really passionate about an argument, though, and he didn't...hate it.

Bill nodded, and Richie continued, "And Eddie's right, you don't have to tell them if you don't want to. We can just hire someone to be your wife whenever your parents come to visit and you won't have to worry. I know I'm not making the case for coming out to your parents--" He gestured to his face, where his bruise looked even darker in the dim lamp light. "But whatever you wanna do, we're here."

"I still like  _ girls _ , though," Bill added.

"That's fair," Richie agreed. "Girls are cool."

Bill nodded to himself, still trying to process the speeding assembly line of thoughts running through him. "And so like, bisexuality is a whole thing, cool, great, how do you  _ cope  _ with finding out a bunch of new shit almost nineteen years into your life about a whole part of yourself? You guys let me talk about Zack Morris so  _ much _ ."

Richie leaned back so him and Eddie were both lying flat on either side of Bill, but in opposite directions. "'Cause Slater was so,  _ so  _ much better, and you were a fucking idiot. We felt  _ bad  _ for your delusional ass."

"He was  _ no  _ \--Anyway! How? Like there's whole parts of my life that never made  _ any  _ sense, and then--like, when Eddie came out! I had an  _ idea _ , but I never wanted to assume anything, and then he comes out and just says it, which, cool, but in my mind, I was like, why does he get to just say that? I can't just say that. And then I was like, wait, why would I want to? Now I fucking  _ get it _ ."

"Glad I could do that for you, Bill," Eddie said.

"I think I liked Stan back? For a hot minute?"

"I'd warn you not to tell him that 'cause he might just leave Mike, but let's be real, he'd rather kill you than leave Mike." Richie sat up and looked at Eddie, eyebrows furrowed. "Did you tell Stan we were staying here?"

"Fuck!"

\---

Running out of Bill's house at two in the morning with Richie behind him, holding his hand so he knew Richie wouldn't fucking die, sprinting down the street through two inches of snow on the footpaths and a good ten on the sidewalk on either side. Richie laughed as they ran, and Eddie just  _ knew  _ that when they got home his lip would be bleeding again, but he didn't care, not if it meant he got to feel anything other than his own bruised face, as he got one fucking sliver of happiness out of this town.

Eddie knocked lightly on the door, batting Richie's hands away from the doorbell, knowing Stan was definitely still sitting in the living room, entirely awake waiting for them to come home, because Eddie had been so focused on Bill's sexuality crisis that he forgot Stan was here, sitting up having a brain aneurysm.

He was right, as Stan swung open the door, relief in his features melting into anguish, choking on his own tongue as he took in Richie's...  _ altered  _ appearance. What was pain quickly morphed into anger, the kind Eddie rarely ever saw on Stan. Stan had a lot of anger, of  _ course  _ he did, they all did, but most of it was at God, or Derry, or homophobic anti-Semites, or it was loving annoyance aimed, usually, at Richie. Eddie had seen Stan angry and scared, down in the sewers, under Neibolt house, but this wasn't the same. There was no fear here. Just pain, lying drowned and empty in his chest, the hollows of the feeling all filled up and cemented in with rage.

"Go to your room," Stan spoke, sharp and smooth like the blade of a guillotine. "Mike had to go home. Then my parents heard the front door open and close, like, forty times, so  _ they  _ came out to see what was going on, but they saw I wasn't in my room, and you guys weren't in yours, and started freaking out. So, I'll handle it, just go."

Eddie and Richie nodded, ducking in past Stan when he opened the door further and rushing off to their room. They didn't say a word to Stan's parents, and Eddie felt guilty as he passed. They were  _ guests  _ here, it was impolite to just walk in a house without greeting your hosts. It was in _ decent _ .

"Richie? Oh, my--"

"He just wants to go to sleep, Mom," Stan told her, gently, and Eddie thanked him silently for the quick exit.

Eddie chuckled in agreement and they went, slipping into the guest room without another word. Richie was tense as all hell, untangling his hand from Eddie's and proceeding to crack all his knuckles, then bite at the skin around his cuticle. Eddie stared at him, heart shattering all over again and piecing it back together so that he could be something, anything, helpful.

"They're gonna call my dad," Richie whispered. "They won't let us keep staying here if I'm gonna show up beaten within an inch of my life on their doorstep. The doorstep  _ they  _ welcomed us on and let us into their house."

Eddie shh'd him and laid on the floor, pressing his ear up to the crack underneath the door. Richie nodded and sat down on the floor too, resting his head on Eddie's stomach and letting his eyes flutter shut, trying to even out his breathing. Eddie tangled his fingers in Richie's hair and strained his neck to listen.

"...No,  _ Dad _ , he isn't into drugs! He got  _ mugged  _ on the way home, he doesn't owe anybody any money! Well, he owes me twenty bucks, but--"

"We're just  _ worried _ ," His mom said, and Eddie could picture her face, all scrunched up and concerned without being afraid that Richie is bringing AIDS into their home from the needles of the drugs he's suspected of doing. Stan's mom always saw the best in everyone, she wouldn't stop when someone challenged it, especially not Stan's best friends. "You didn't really give us an explanation--"

"'Cause I didn't want to make him explain his mugging to you! It's late! He's probably  _ exhausted _ , I just want everyone to go to bed and whatever we want to worry about, we can do it in the  _ morning  _ \--"

Stan's dad scoffed. "And you said you could n _ eee _ ver be a lawyer, with how well you argue--"

Eddie heard someone shift before Stan's mom interrupted, "Did he go to the police? The hospital? Do we need to file a report?"

"What? No--I. We can ask in the  _ morning _ . It's two a.m.! I just wanna make sure my friend is okay, and then I want to go to bed. Can we  _ please _ \--"

"Alright, alright," Mr. Uris acquiesced, slapping his knees before standing up in the way dads did.

Eddie listened for the pitter patter of footsteps down the hall, two in cadence with each other, and another lighter one behind. Eddie yelped and scrambled away from the door so he wouldn't get a homemade concussion, as Stan pushed in and joined them on the floor. Without a word, he clicked the door shut behind him and pulled Richie into his arms, breathing deeply into his shoulder like he was talking himself down from a panic attack.

"Should I be worried I'm gonna wake up tomorrow and have to piss in a cup?" Richie grumbled, squeezing Stan around his middle.

Stan laughed, stilted and false, tears dripping down his face. "Shut up, shut the  _ fuck  _ up, I'm--" He fell back to sit on the heels of his feet, broken sobs wracking his body like an iceburg through the Titanic. "I-I knew when Bill called and said Eddie had to leave and with, with his kit, I knew it couldn't be good. I--" He choked on his words and coughed. "I thought maybe your dad hit you again, and you were hurt but not,  _ not  _ this. I didn't think he would--"

"'S okay, Stan, Eddie fixed me up--"

"But it's not okay that he  _ had  _ to! Because your dad shouldn't fucking do that! I swear, I fucking  _ swear _ , one word and he's gone. I doubt I'll be fucking alone on it--"

"You won't," Eddie muttered, sitting with his legs curled up close to his chest. "I wanted to, but I couldn't--Richie won't  _ let  _ \--"

"You  _ wouldn't  _ let us," Stan breathed, and then pulled Richie into his arms again. "You're a dick, Richie, but you're better than anyone who has ever fucking hurt you." Stan squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead into Richie's neck, then looked dead at Eddie over his shoulder. "But if he ever does it again--"

Richie laughed and hugged Stan tighter. "Got it, Stanny. You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you and Eddie like me way more than you let on."

Eddie swallowed around the lump in his throat. "Never."

"Oh, absolutely not."

\---

Eddie watched the moonlight illuminate Richie's face, turning his delicate features into a monochromatic portrait, morphing his father's abuse into a failed attempt at face paint. He listened to Richie sleep, Eddie's head leaning on Richie's outstretched arm while his other rested gently on his stomach, the No Man's Land between the two muted bruises on his sides, just below the trenches dug in between his ribs. His eyes looked smaller without his glasses, his long, dark eyelashes fanning out over his cheeks, a gentle crease situated between his eyebrows, like his dreams were deep in thought. He smelled clean, like antiseptic, with the ghost of Stan's shampoo on his shoulder. He needed a haircut, Eddie noted, as he looked up and Richie's hair and tickled his forehead.

There was a well, already being dug, growing deeper in his chest, that Eddie wasn't sure he'd ever be able to fill. How many times was Richie going to take a hit for them? It was like an oncoming train, and Richie put himself right in front of every time,even if none of them were tied down to the tracks. From the moment they met, Richie was putting himself in front of a fucking train for them, and his parents never did anything but love him for it. He was a 'brave and selfless kid'. They 'couldn't have imagined a better son'. And then they could. They imagined a shell of Richie, who exceeded every expectation, instead of the real fucking Richie, who exceeded their every expectation except  **one** . And they did  _ this  _ to him. They couldn't change his heart, so Went beat him until he almost saw it for himself.

Eddie should have fucking  _ been  _ there. Went and Maggie shouldn't have been there. It was all fucked up.  _ Eddie  _ should have done something! If not actual, literal murder, then he should have kicked Went in the fucking balls or maybe gotten ahead of Richie on this one thing and been the person who took the fucking blame for once. Just fucking  _ once _ . Richie didn't deserve this. He never deserved any of this.

Eddie sighed miserably, kissing Richie's shoulder before sliding out of their bed. He wasn't going to get much sleep, if any, and whatever he  _ did  _ get wouldn't be fucking restful. He'd probably wake up mid-blind rage hovering over Richie's dad's face with a baseball bat, ready to swing. And as much as that idea appealed to him, Richie wouldn't forgive him if he did it.

He silently exited the room, wincing as the door whined on its hinges. He padded down the hallway, thankful for his thermal socks that kept him from making too much noise, sneaking into the kitchen and grabbing a glass from the cabinet. Eddie jumped as another creak sounded, and he expected Richie to come in bitching at him for trying to sneak out, only to be surprised at Stan standing in the archway. He didn't say anything yet, just stood there in his pajamas with his arms crossed and his shoulders all hunched over.

Eddie looked around the room, waiting, turning around and filling his glass with water from the sink when Stan didn't say anything. He turned around back to him, who was still standing still, watching him, like a fucking statue.

"Wanna go outside?" Stan asked eventually, hugging himself. "I have a jacket that'll cover your legs."

Eddie sipped his water. "Sure."

\---

It was way too cold for Eddie to only be wearing a shirt, shorts, and a long ass trench coat Eddie is  _ sure  _ was once used by Stan and Richie to try and sneak into a movie theater by Richie sitting on Stan's shoulders. He wondered if his glass of water would freeze, as he glanced at it sitting on Stan's porch between them, trying to ignore the cold of the melting snow seeping through the back of the jacket. Stan rummaged through his sweatshirt and pulled out a joint, which shocked Eddie so much he audibly scoffed, and then pulled a lighter, one of the long ones you used for birthday candles and gas stoves, to light it.

"You hide weed in your parents' house but not a regular fucking lighter," Eddie muttered, as Stan took a hit before handing it to Eddie.

"I like to smoke, not accidentally set my house on fire," Stan replied, then went silent.

For a long time, they sat there, watching the empty street ahead of them. Eddie watched a kid across the street flip a light on in their room, moving around before going back and turning it off. A hundred lives on this street alone, and Eddie didn't know a single thing about any of them. Well, there was Amanda from three houses down, who his mother tried to set him up with before, but that was different. That was...gross.

"He's gonna be okay, right?" Stan whispered, turning to Eddie. Ashes sparked and dropped in the snow, which they would have to bury before they went back inside. Or, well, Stan would bury, because neither of them had gloves and Eddie was wearing Stan's shoes, which were two sizes too big and would actually get kicked into the atmosphere if he tried to scatter snow anywhere with his foot.

"Should be. Physically, at least. Emotionally, I don't know….I  _ hope  _ \--"

"Well,  _ yeah _ , obviously--"

"But I can't be  _ sure _ ."

"Of course." Stan took a drag of the joint and handed it back to Eddie, his breath and the smoke both clouding out into the darkness. "I didn't--I was--"

Eddie didn't say anything, drank down his water and then moved the empty glass out of the way to move closer to Stan, leaning his head on his shoulder. Stan shuddered at the contact, probably at Eddie's snow-dotted hair tickling his cheek, and then leaned his head on Eddie's.

"Not to sound gay or anything, but, I love him," Stan breathed.

"That's pretty gay."

"Says you." He swallowed again and tried to find the words. Stan was usually good at expressing and explaining others' feelings to them, to help them understand, but when it came to himself, he often struggled with it. Stan usually used thinly veiled threats as a love language, in which all Losers were fluent. "I don't think I'd know what to do without Richie. He was the first one I told, about...about mostly everything, really. I never told anyone about being gay, not until...He'd been pining after you, noticeably,  _ obviously _ , and he'd...He'd always known when to...be trusted, or to not make a joke, or  _ to  _ make a joke, and he was the first one I ever even  _ thought _ of telling. Aside from Mike, he's probably my best friend. And obviously you get it, probably feel it more than I do, but we  _ can't  _ lose him."

Eddie nodded. "I know. If I wanted to, and Richie would never find out, and we'd never get caught, would you kill Went?"

"I'd leave him in the town square for everyone to see," Stan conceded simply. "He's never gonna see Richie again, whether he's dead or alive."

Eddie nudged him. "Shut up, we're not  _ actually  _ gonna kill his dad."

"We're hanging out with everyone all day tomorrow. They're gonna ask questions, and Richie is too honest to lie. I don't think Richie has all the strength in him to stop Beverly."

" _ Shit _ ."

They both jumped as the front door opened, with Stan almost throwing the joint into the next county until they both saw it was Richie, in sweatpants and a shirt, wrapped up in the decorative throw blanket that was usually draped on the foot of their bed.

"What are we shitting about?" Richie questioned, leaning over Stan with his pipe cleaner body and plucking the joint from his hands to take a long drag from it, squatting on Stan's porch and groaning as he exhaled.

"Nothing," Eddie sighed, rolling his eyes in fake-annoyance as Richie sat down and squeezed himself between the two, shimmying until they made space for him.

"I woke up and you were gone," Richie complained, elbowing Eddie playfully in the side, but leaning into Stan. "And  _ you  _ came into our room to watch me sleep, dickwad."

Stan turned bright red, even in the darkness, and flicked Richie lightly on the arm, but then stopped, looking Richie in the eye and swallowing hard, like it was physically painful.

Stan reached up and kissed Richie on the forehead. "I'm just happy you're okay, you fucking asshole. Don't waste it by making me kill you on my own doorstep."

"Oh, Stanny." Richie threw his arms around both of their shoulders. "In another life, in another life." He kissed Eddie's head, then on his neck right behind his jaw. "But not this one."

The three of them all sat against one another until sunrise, when Richie started complaining his ass was getting numb and Eddie finally got tired enough to actually sleep without having a panic attack. Stan nodded and came inside with them, only protesting a moderate amount when Eddie and Richie dragged him in their room and made him the smallest spoon, with Eddie ironically being the big one, and Richie in the middle.

"Oh! I forgot to ask!" Richie craned his neck around to look at Eddie. "When Bill was talking about Audra, did you like, not know what the fuck to say? Like, at  _ all?  _ "

Eddie jumped. "Oh my god,  _ no _ . 'Cause, like--"

"I have no experience in, like, that--If you broke up with me, I'd probably become a hermit in a mountain somewhere--"

Stan turned around to them. "Wait, what?"

" _ Shit _ , when we were at Bill's he was telling us about how him and Audra broke up, and he was like haha she didn't break my heart, she said I was an entry level crush, like  _ okay _ , but aren't you sad, dude? Why are you not crying?" Richie rambled. "I don't know what it's like to have a crush for, like, two months. I've had one fucking actual crush in my life. If Eddie dumped me, I'd be fucking  _ bawling _ . Rivers, bitch."

"Shut the fuck up," Eddie muttered, pushing the fabric of Richie's shirt up to stick his hand underneath, resting on his stomach. Thankfully, Richie would never have to do that, because they weren't gonna break up. Literally, ever.

"Never cried before, why would he now?" Stan asked. "He wasn't sad?"

Richie wiggled on the bed to further his point. "No! And then he had like a whole crisis about another thing with us and it  _ kind of  _ had to do with the breakup, but it, like--"

"It had nothing to do with Audra, really," Eddie finished.

"Yeah! It was so weird, but I didn't want to mention it in case he was like, holding back a breakdown. Not that it was really an emotionally guarded time for any of us," Richie muttered. Stan flipped over to face them both, waiting for them to continue. Eddie wanted to get closer to Richie, but he couldn't really do anything once he was, couldn't hug him 'cause all the bruises on his side, and he didn't want to hurt him more.

Richie gesticulated, expressing something with his hands. "Like, how do you date a girl for over a year and not have, like, a full-on mental breakdown? Like, even when he came and told us, he seemed fine. In tears, but fine. I asked Ben, like, a million times if Bill was acting weird, because I knew he'd be honest and Ben said he  _ wasn't _ . Like, who just  _ doesn't?  _ Bill probably wrote her a book or some shit, and she comes and tells you she's breaking up with you, and you're like cool, okay, let me have a crisis about it that has  _ nothing  _ to do with the breakup? I've been dating Eddie for seven months and if he ever came to me and was like, hey you were a good place to start, but I'm done now, I'd lose it. Like, you would never see me again."

"We can interrogate Bill tom _ orrow _ ," Stan told them, flipping back over away from them and sticking his arm up when Richie noodled under it and pushed then pushed his hips back to be closer to Eddie. There was no way they were all staying on this bed all night. Someone was going to fall off and somehow it was going to be Richie.

"Fine," Richie sighed, smacking his face on the pillow.

Eddie smiled and moved closer to Richie, hooking his hands under Richie's arms and folding his hands over his chest, to avoid his bruises but also to get the closeness he needed. "Thank god."

\---

Eddie woke up a good four hours later, feeling like absolute garbage. He could hear Stan talking to his parents in the kitchen, and how the fuck he could wake up and hold a conversation on three hours of sleep, when Eddie personally felt like he'd been hit by a truck and dragged down the freeway for forty miles, he would never understand. He looked over to find Richie awake too, his glasses pushed way up on his nose as he read the comic book Eddie had thrown on the nightstand the night before when Bill called.

"Hey," Richie greeted, and Eddie groaned, inching across the bed ducking under Richie's arm to rest his head on Richie's chest, glancing at the pages before looking back up at Richie. His bruises were a deeper bluish-purple, and Eddie kissed his face gently there. Richie winced slightly, but quickly leaned into it, his eyes gently falling shut

"Hi," Eddie said. "We need to get up so we don't miss breakfast."

Richie shrugged. "We can just go to Countryside? I want  _ bacon _ ."

Eddie snorted at the mention of Countryside Diner, which was never good but Eddie and Richie both loved it. With that much grease and the sheer amount of butter, they always left with lighter wallets that weren't entirely empty, leftovers, and a clogged artery that Eddie could avoid for the sake of the Countryside veggie omelette, which was in no way healthy despite it advertising itself as such.

"Fine, but we have to get up before they close, so let's go." Eddie sat up, narrowly avoiding slamming into Richie's arm as he ducked underneath it. He turned back to Richie, the big scabs on his lip and eyebrow, his loose shirt covering the remainder of his injuries. Richie closed the comic book and set it on the table, sitting up and sliding out of their bed.

"What're you staring at, weirdass?" Richie asked as he stood, grabbing the hem of his shirt and pulling it off. Eddie watched the muscles in his back move as he took a new shirt and jeans out of their bag and put them on.

Eddie got dressed himself, because the more he thought about breakfast the more ravenous he became, and waited for Richie to do the same. He was much slower, trying to avoid his bruises on his face, but still flinching. Eddie frowned, which deepened as Richie shoved on his shoes without untying them. He turned around to face Eddie, grabbing his wallet off of the dresser they didn't use and shoving it in his back pocket without breaking eye contact.

"Okay, you're actually starting to freak me out," Richie told him.

"Sorry," Eddie said, but didn't look away. The thought, again, passed through him, like a physical sensation, that Richie could have been fucking killed last night. "I love you."

"Oh? That's  _ super  _ gay dude," Richie joked, walking over to him to pull Eddie into his arms. Eddie coughed in surprise at the suddenness of his movement and hugged Richie back, sticking his arms all weird right under Richie's armpits cause he didn't remember the exact location of his bruises. "I love you too."

"I'm glad you're here with me."

Richie kissed the top of Eddie's head. "Me too, Eds. Let's go."

Eddie nodded. "Yeah, okay."

\---

Stan screamed as his front door burst open and Bill walked through, face red and his eyes bloodshot, his hair sticking up like a mohawk from his habit of pushing his hair back in the wrong direction when he stress-paced a room. His hands were blotchy like they always were when he got freaked out about something. Stan's cards fluttered face-up on the table, Richie not even taking note of Bill and instead inspecting all of Stan's cards like a fucking cheat.

"How did you know you were gay?" Bill demanded, breathing harshly. Eddie blinked at him. He leaned over to look out the front door, concern building in his chest when he didn't see any cars in the driveway. They all had a weird tendency to run somewhere when they didn't have the patience for anything else, but where it came from, Eddie couldn't even begin to recognize.

Stan blinked. "Did you just break my front door?"

"No, it was open. Are you gonna answer my question?" Bill came over and sat at the head of the coffee table, disregarding the Rummy 500 game they were playing and laying his head down flat on the discard pile.

"How am I supposed to answer that?" Stan asked him. "You just  _ know _ ."

Richie blinked rapidly and stared at Stan like he had four heads. "You just  _ knew?  _ No inner issues you just looked at a guy and you were like yeah, sure?"

Stan looked at him. "...Essentially, yeah. It's not that hard."

"Not that hard!" Richie waved his hands as he had his tantrum, accidentally flashing his cards at Eddie. Eddie raised his eyebrows. If they ever got back to the game, and Richie laid down that king he was holding onto, Eddie could probably snag the lead from him. "Eddie had to kiss me  _ on the  _ **_mouth_ ** before I was convinced he wasn't a little bit homophobic."

" _ What? _ " Eddie asked. "We shared a bed for, like, four months before that! What do you mean  _ 'homophobic'  _ ?"

"You always slept under the top sheet, and I thought it was cause--"

"'Cause I didn't wanna be the weird pervert cashing in on the opportunity to touch his best friend!"

"You could have! I mean,  _ hey  _ \--"

Bill smacked his hands down on the table. "Help me!" He whined. "I think I'm going  _ through  _ something."

Richie snorted. "No shit. Why do you think you're going through something?"

Eddie watched, nothing short of shocked, as Bill clenched his jaw, face turning bright red and his lips scrunching up so far it looked like an asshole on his face. This was not the Bill that led all seven of them into a weird sewer battle with a circus themed asshole. This was  _ not  _ the kid searching for answers as to  _ why  _ It wanted his little brother, why It was even there at all, and who would do anything to get those answers. Not the fearless leader Eddie wanted to have a playground wedding with in the third grade. This Bill was  _ terrified _ , but Eddie didn't know why. He didn't know how to help this Bill.

"Bill, dude, c'mon," Richie said, lightly punching Bill's arm, not willing to pause at his hesitance like Stan and Eddie had. The venn diagram of Richie's brazen attitude and his dumbassery was a fucking circle. "We're not gonna make fun of you.  _ I'll  _ make fun of you, obviously, but it's out of love."

Bill nodded, but stayed silent. They all stared at him until Eddie cleared his throat and Stan swept up his cards on the table, both of them preparing to continue the card game if only so Bill felt like all the attention wasn't on him. Richie, though, leaned his elbows on the table and put his chin in his hands, staring Bill down. Like an idiot.

"I think," Bill began, "I might." He raised his eyebrows and looked away from them, trying to reference what he wouldn't say. "But I know it will ruin everything." He coughed. "I--It's not just. It's like,  _ revived _ , from...y'know  _ earlier _ in my life, but I didn't  _ know  _ about it before, and now I'm going through my whole shit and I'm like oh, uh...that's, that's really interesting? But it's not just  _ one  _ person. That's where it gets all weird. But I don't  _ want  _ it to be weird."

"If it's love, it's gotta be weird," Richie argued. Eddie went to argue, to defend his  _ honor _ , but then realized Richie was a fifty foot tall kid with a stand up comedian complex and a body that looked like it was made out of twigs, and Eddie was a neurotic ex-hypochondriac who, despite being being eighteen years old, couldn't surpass five foot five. Stan just shrugged in agreement. Eddie didn't want to know what made him and Mike weird, it would probably be something illegal, or so totally opposite of his image of Mike and Stan that it would ruin their image in Eddie's brain for as long as he lived.

" _ Fine _ ," Bill relented. "But it's, like, bad. Not that love can be  _ bad _ , 'cept pedophiles 'cause that's sick, but--"

Richie stared at him with wonder, a disbelieving smile plastered on his face. "What the hell are you  _ talking  _ about right now, dude?"

"I don't know! I don't know. I'm confused."

Stan looked at him, eyebrows furrowed and raised. "Doesn't sound like it."

Bill looked at him, then slumped his entire body, head hanging. "But it's not gonna work out."

"You don't know that," Stan argued, then took his turn, 'cause apparently they were  _ actually  _ gonna continue the game now. "You  _ literally  _ can't know that if you haven't done anything about it. 

Bill cried out and slapped his hands over his face. "I'm pretty fucking certain here."

"Only way to be certain is to do it, Billy Boy," Richie told him, picking up a card once Stan finished his turn.

Ben stood up, pushing on the table and almost upending their whole operation. "You're right, but I want more pity, so I'm gonna go home and make Georgie feel bad for me."

Stan laughed as Bill left. "Good luck!" He called.

Richie was beaming as wide as his split lip would allow. "Eddie, you got any threes?"

"...That's not…the game...we're playing?"

\---

They usually went to Ben's house for New Year's, because the Hanscom privacy rule usually let them go wild without intervention, but this year they all were at Bill's, cause his parents went to party, and Georgie was over at his friend's house, and watching the ball drop on Bill's living room TV was better than eavesdropping on Ben's parents' party from the floor above them and waiting for  _ them  _ to cheer before they could do it themselves, and Richie kissing them all on the cheek, except for Eddie, who Richie kissed on the side of the head.

This year, Eddie was getting fucking  _ kissed _ , he thought, as he watched Richie giggling and talking to Beverly about  _ something _ , flush high on his cheeks from everyone's drunken dishing of affection on him, and swaying along to the music Bill put on to drown out the annoying as fuck announcer guy on ABC. He threw an arm around Bev and threw them obnoxiously from side to side, until Bev tipped them over and narrowly avoided spilling her drink, which was probably ten percent RC Cola, ninety percent liquor, because Beverly somehow liked the taste of fine aged jet fuel.

Eddie glanced at the TV, smiling at the clock in the corner of the screen which read fifteen minutes to midnight, and then back at Richie. He wasn't high, or necessarily drunk, but he was still stuck in that deep well of overwhelming affection that usually required some level of intoxication for him to sink into.

Beverly had cut Richie's hair the day before, a skill she learned after too many salons chastised her for her short hair, and tried to make it as 'girlish' as they could, when that wasn't what she wanted, so his curls were back to the haphazard bundle of wild hair sticking out like a bird's nest on his head. He rolled off of Beverly and laid on the floor, his arm held directly upward, holding his own drink, which Eddie knew was Pepsi, as he'd become obsessed with it since learning Stan's parents were a Coke family. His bruises started healing, greenish-yellow now on his skin, and the scab on his lip had morphed into a shallow mark Eddie was certain would fade almost entirely.

Richie sat up and gulped down the rest of his cup, crawling over to Eddie, who was sprawled out on the couch, and flopping his whole body on top of him. Eddie grunted at the influx of weight, and then staunchly  _ ignored  _ the shock of excitement that ran through his body at how much he enjoyed it. Richie tucked his head into Eddie's shoulder, humming once he was settled.

"You comfortable?" Eddie asked, laughing when Richie nodded and it tickled Eddie's neck.

"Mhmm, gonna take a nap here," Richie mumbled, body going lax. "'M tired."

"Okay," Eddie sighed, relaxing on the couch further and tangling his hand in Richie's hair.

"Wake me up for the ball drop, I'll--We'll kiss."

"Sure."

Eddie woke up when someone threw a cup at his forehead, which he soon came to realize was, like, the fifteenth fucking cup someone had thrown at them, as he shifted and oceans of them fell off of him and Richie onto the floor.

"Ten seconds, asshole!" Beverly yelled, turning back to the TV, which the others were all gathered around. Richie lifted his head as another wave of cups rolled off of them, inching up Eddie's body so their faces were parallel.

"You couldn't wake us up any earlier?" Richie muttered, but nobody answered, all yelling out the countdown as Richie took his glasses off. Why he didn't do it before, Eddie and the dent in his side from the hinge of Richie's glasses digging into his bone marrow didn't know, but he appreciated it now regardless.

Beverly rolled her eyes and joined in with everybody else. "Three! Two! One! Happy--" Ben cut her off by kissing her, and Eddie would have smiled if Richie wasn't leaning down to do the same.

Eddie hummed and kissed him back, tasting the faint trace of Pepsi still on his lips, but he didn't mind all that much.

Eddie used to dread this moment on New Year's, as Richie wouldn't even give him the courtesy he gave everyone else, like he was grossed out by him, like he already knew what he felt and was trying to tell him he didn't return those feelings. He used to go home right after and his mom would be sitting on her chair, waiting for him, demanding he go to her and kiss her on the cheek, and then run upstairs to his room and try not to cry, and then feel pathetic that he wanted to cry in the first place. It wasn't Richie's fucking fault that he didn't love Eddie how Eddie loved him, that he wanted something from Richie that Richie wasn't comfortable giving him, and it was  _ dumb _ to get so upset about it.

He eventually realized, when him and Richie talked about it one night after it came into Eddie's head and he refused to let it go, it was because Richie was, truly,  _ over _ enthusiastic to extend that sentiment to him, but he didn't want Eddie to be grossed out if he ever 'found out what Richie was' and beat the shit out of him for it. Eddie rolled his eyes at their fucking idiocy, pushing upwards and kissing Richie harder to make up for how stupid they were in the past. The others all called out their violation of the vomit rule, but Eddie didn't care. He made it out of his mother's house, fought his demons both literally and in his own bitch of a heart,  _ and  _ he got the boy.

It was a pretty good way to start the year.

\---

When Eddie woke up, it was a good four in the afternoon, his brain was doing the macarena against his  _ skull _ , and Richie was all the way across the bed, sound asleep and probably feeling fucking fine because he had, maybe, a  _ sip _ of Eddie's drink once they ran out of Pepsi. He shoved Richie to wake him up, because they had been pretty good with sleeping like normal people, but it was slipping now, halfway through break, and Eddie refused to let it.

They hadn't left Bill's until nine the next morning, because Eddie woke up to hear Stan sitting up, his back cracking like a glow stick, grumbling about how he wanted to sleep in a  _ bed _ . They took Mike with them, because why not, stumbling into their rooms and falling asleep again. It was break, they were  _ allowed _ , but Eddie barely slept. For definition's sake, he was asleep, but it was the floaty kind of sleep where he was still, in some part, awake, and all of his half-awake energy was focusing on the throbbing in his head.

"What do you  _ want? _ " Richie groaned, rolling onto his stomach and shoving his face into his pillow.

"You're such a bitch," Eddie complained. "Go into Stan's kitchen and make dinner for me. I think they have chicken nuggets."

Richie turned to him, his hair everywhere, his eyes opened wide. He looked fucking  _ endearing _ , and Eddie really wanted to kiss him, and maybe some other things, but he was in too much pain to think about it right now.

"...Are chicken nuggets kosher?"

"I don't  _ know _ ," Eddie sighed. "Make me food, please. My head is pounding."

"I know a better way to get rid of your headache than making you  _ food _ ."

Eddie slid off the bed like a ragdoll, landing on his feet and looking around the room for his shirt. "Know you can, but not what I want."

"You don't?"

"I can barely stand to  _ look _ at you without going rabid right now, and my head is not strong enough to support that, so...let's...food."

Richie stood and picked at his nail, pushing his cannibalized cuticle back to expose fucking dermis. He curled in on himself, like he was trying to make himself smaller, which was virtually impossible for a fifty foot tall tree creature, before looking up at Eddie and pushing the words out of his mouth. "You mean in a good way, right? Like, not cause I looked all fucked up like this?"

"Fucked up?" Eddie asked, dial-up sounds blaring in his mind as all his brain activity stopped. "Why would I--Because of your  _ face? _ And your bruises?"

Richie sniffed. "Well,  _ basically _ , yeah. We haven't really...uh... _ done _ anything... _ since _ Went…" He trailed off and gestured to himself vaguely. "Did all this."

Eddie closed his eyes and breathed out slowly. Richie, in all his boisterous confidence, his electric energy and weirdly artistic features. The long lines of his body and haphazard edges of him, the way his body in  _ no _ way reflected Roman or Greek antiquity but there was something so statuesque about him, that went beyond him being as pale as fucking marble. He felt like classical values, of art, of striving to be perfect in all things, the constant attempt to get as close as one could to divinity.

"Are you actually dumb?" Eddie blurted out, watching as Richie reared back. "You think a  _ bruise _ is gonna make me, what, not attracted to you anymore?"

"...Maybe? I don't know!"

"I liked you when you thought  _ fingerless gloves  _ were cute, dickwad! You had glasses the size of a planet and your mouth looked like a fucking  _ spaceship _ !  _ Every single day  _ something was happening in there!" He started counting them on his hands. "Rubber bands, night gear, broken brackets, the weird  _ wax _ shit, and I was  _ swooning _ over your dumb ass!" Eddie huffed and swept his hair out of his face. "And you're worried about  _ bruises? _ Do I hate the fact that you have them? Yeah, obviously! Your dad  _ hurt  _ you! But they don't make you less... _ you! _ Have you been, like, worried about this?"

Richie swallowed and looked down at the ground. "Well now I'm afraid to answer."

"Richie!" Eddie wanted to die when Richie didn't say anything. Richie, literally, never shut the fuck up. He opened his mouth when he met Eddie for the first time and then never shut it since. And he was saying  _ nothing _ . "What the fuck?"

"I just thought, oh! Like, maybe, you...I'm already weird looking, just, in a general sense, and you like me then, but maybe this made you realize, like, oh...this isn't a thing for me. Nobody wants to have sex with a lanky weirdass who looks like a fucked up oil painting."

" _ Oil painting? _ " Eddie whisper-screamed. He was in  _ hysterics _ , he was about to go through the door, without opening it, and an Eddie sized hole would be in the door forever like a chalk outline, because Richie was  _ also _ going to  _ kill him _ . He needed a paper bag to breathe into, something, literally anything. "Oh my god."

Richie looked at him, the skin by his thumb nail bright red as one long patch of skin had been picked at over and over. "Are you okay? I'm sorry--"

"Why are you  _ sorry? _ For thinking I'm not gonna wanna fuck you if your face doesn't look like, what, a Noxzema ad? You didn't even look like  _ that _ ," Eddie ranted, gesturing to Richie's face, all grown up and preparing for  _ adulthood _ , or whatever they were doing that really felt more like they were twelve year olds without labor laws, "--until I was already in love with you for, like, four years. You think you're gonna fall down a flight of stairs when we're thirty, hit your forehead off a bannister, and all of a sudden I'm gonna want a divorce? No!" He walked up to Richie and pulled him into his arms, holding his waist gently "You could take a bat to the face, get face reconstruction, and look entirely different, and I'm still gonna be like, 'Oh, yeah, that's the love of my life.' Cause I'm not  _ stupid _ ."

"I get that  _ now _ , but we're also usually, like, the horniest people I know, so I got all freaked out, that  _ maybe _ \--"

"Fucking  _ maybe _ these doors don't have locks and, besides  _ two _ accidents at two o'clock in the morning, we are  _ still _ trying not to scar the Uris family."

Richie rolled his eyes. "Four. Four accidents."

"You're proving my point," Eddie grit out. "I'm lucky you got into comedy, 'cause if you wanted to be a lawyer, we'd really be fucked." He leaned up and kissed Richie, brushing his fingers over Richie's face. His entire face, even his bruises, 'cause,  _ yeah _ , he loved him. He loved what he fucking looked like no matter what he actually fucking looked like. Because it was Richie. "Now, go make me  _ food _ ."

They were just leaving the room when someone started knocking on Stan's front door. Stan came out, half dressed, with Mike still asleep in his bed, not dressed at all. Eddie's eyebrows shot up and then moved away, not wanting to pry on...yes. Yes, that.

"What time is it?" Stan asked, fumbling towards his front door, in Mike's shirt from the night before, his plain boxers, and his socks.

"Four," Eddie answered, as Mike groaned and Stan's bedsprings creaked, revealing Mike moments later. "We slept, literally, all day."

"Ugh," Stan replied, looking through the peephole, before slowly opening the door. "Yeah?"

Bev and Ben stood there, pressed together, holding their own hands like they were two kids getting caught doing something they shouldn't have been. Her car was in the driveway, but they looked like they'd run there, flushed, with Beverly's hair half up and half down, and Ben breathing like he was trying not to have his first asthma attack. Ben wouldn't look at them, either, eyes focused on the gray toes of Stan's socks and bracing his hand against the siding. Beverly smiled awkwardly and her eyes trailed the doorframe, like the structure that held the Uris' front door inside of it was the most beautiful and historically significant thing she had ever seen.

"Are you two catatonic or something?" Stan asked, waving his hands in front of her face. "Hellooo?"

Beverly turned her head so she was facing Stan, but her eyes were looking directly upward, like she was looking for God to intervene on her behalf. "We did something…" She admitted when God apparently hung up on her, rocking on her feet.

Richie slid his arms over Eddie's shoulders, joining his hands in front of Eddie and resting his head on top of his hair. Eddie leaned into it, holding Richie's elbows so he wouldn't pull away.

Stan stared at them, not phased by their...weird behavior? Eddie didn't even know what to call it. "Like what?" He asked.

"Something bad?...I don't know if it could be... _ considered _ bad. It's not like it was  _ illegal _ , but, morally, it was kind of..."

"You didn't kill anyone?" Mike asked, padding into the living room. Eddie smiled at him, his bright purple fleece socks shuffling on the hardwood floors. It was nice to see him in clothes.

Beverly startled. "What? No."

"Can't be that bad then. Where's Bill?"

Beverly pursed her lips, opening her mouth and closing it over and over. "Well…"

Eddie stared at them both, listening to Beverly speak but watching Ben. More specifically, watching him  _ not _ speak. Because, if he was just being honest, he knew Ben for a long time. He knew his little mannerisms and tells, even if he didn't always know how to interpret them. One thing he did know was that Ben was never good at keeping his own secrets. He could keep everyone else's secrets, because it would be rude not to, but he didn't like having secrets of his own. He actually hated it. One year they tried to throw him a surprise birthday party, but he found out about it after he saw the decorations in the trunk of Beverly's car, and then blurted out to them that he knew about it, then felt so guilty about it he apologized for accidentally finding out. His own feelings always came out somehow, through him admitting them, writing about them, literally anyway he could. He was always living with his own tell-tale heart.

Eddie made eye contact with him and watched as he  _ visibly _ crumbled. Eddie thought maybe they broke Bill's favorite snow globe, or something, and now they needed help finding another one, what Eddie  _ didn't _ expect him to say, was:

"We had sex with Bill," Ben confessed, face burning in the cold of the afternoon. He squeezed his eyes shut and put his face in his hands as Beverly elbowed him.

Eddie could  _ picture _ Stan's eyes boggling out of his head. "You  _ what? _ "

"Dude!" Beverly hushed. "Aren't your parents home?"

"What? No. They're visiting my grandmother."

"Is that the grandma who hates me or the one who thinks I'm handsome?" Richie asked.

Stan didn't even look at him. "Hates you. Well, she doesn't hate you, she just thinks your immatu--"

"Can we talk about the problem here?" Eddie asked, interrupting their conversation. As much as he was willing to hear about Stan's grandma, he was about to explode if he didn't learn more details  _ immediately. _

Beverly rolled his eyes. "Can  _ we _ come in first? I'm fucking ice out here."

"You're fucking  _ Bill _ out there," Richie corrected, as Stan moved to let them in. Beverly looked at Richie, who looked at her, who looked at him. Then, gracefully, she ripped her glove off and swatted at Richie's head with it.

"Fuck  _ off _ ."

\---

Eddie sat down in Richie's lap as Stan turned the lights on, turning the main purpose of the room from dining to interrogation. There were enough chairs that they could each sit somewhere, since Bill was (according to his one-night stands) still at home, but Richie insisted they leave a chair 'for Bill' because 'everyone has the right to a trial' even if he wouldn't be present for it. All in all, Eddie wasn't complaining. Mike came in and dropped a bag of chips in the middle of the table, which both Beverly and Eddie reached for, but Eddie got to first.

"Felons don't get food," Eddie explained, tearing open the bag. Richie smiled into his neck, then leaned back in his chair.

He cleared his throat, straightening in their shared chair like he was calling them to trial, holding Eddie's waist. "Molly, Bennifer, as you can see, we have questions."

Bev groaned and let her head fall onto the table and turned to Ben, head still on the table, which made Stan grimace noticeably. "Why did we tell them?"

Ben scratched at his faint five o'clock shadow. "Because we were panicking about it and everyone else was already over here."

"Right." She nodded and then buried her head back into her arms on the table.

Stan sat up straighter, cracking his back and straightening his shoulders like Richie had done; Mike looked at him with such cartoon-ish looking heart eyes it felt like he was gonna get down on one knee. Eddie laughed to himself at the idea of Richie and Stan being lawyers together, the Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson duo that would inevitably be disbarred for felony mischief.

"First question," Stan started, "fucking  _ when? _ We were with you guys all night."

"Did you fuck with us in the room?" Richie asked, sitting up so quickly Eddie almost fell off of him, gripping at his arms to hold balance. " _ Benny _ , you de _ linquent! _ "

Ben laughed and covered his face. "Shut up, Rich," he muttered, but he was still smiling, so Richie didn't apologize. He leaned back in his chair and pushed his feet up to the front two legs of the chair left the ground and leaning on the back two. "No, though, it was, like, three in the morning," Ben said, face pink. "And we went to the kitchen for  _ water _ , and then Bill came in to see what we were doing, and  _ things _ happened."

Beverly sat up then. "It was a...spur of the moment thing...that was also...planned? Not  _ planned _ , we didn't, like, we're not  _ predators _ \--"

"Did you think we thought you were?" Mike asked.

Bev bit at the skin on her lip. " _ No _ , obviously not, but--"

Richie's hand left Eddie to push up his glasses. "And I'm assuming you two didn't talk to Bill?"

"How did you leave his house? Did you--Was he just asleep?" Eddie turned in Richie's lap to face them again.

Ben shook his head, which Eddie should have guessed. Ben wasn't the type to love 'em and leave 'em. "No, we, like, had  _ cereal _ \--"

"In complete silence, like someone just  _ died _ ." She flipped Richie off when he laughed, until Richie had to bury his mouth into Eddie's shoulder so he couldn't be heard anymore. "And then Bill was like 'haha my parents are gonna come home soon, you don't have to leave, but y'know, fun fact. Just letting you know!' So we hauled  _ ass _ over here, because we don't know what to do."

Eddie just stared at them. These two were going to a prestigious college, graduated in the top half of their class. Eddie saw Ben's architecture homework and it felt like he was reading hieroglyphics. Beverly once memorized two hundred digits of pi for a bet. How on earth were they so  _ dumb? _

"I don't know, maybe t _ alk to him? _ " Eddie told them. "Like…? What did you think we were gonna tell you to do? Flee the country?"

"Honestly." Mike nodded in agreement. "Also, since when is Bill into guys?"

Richie sighed. "Oh, it's a whole thing."

"You knew about it?" Mike asked, leaning forward to look at him.

"When my face got fucked up, yeah."

Eddie looked at Richie, seething with as much rage and love as one could be without imploding, warning, "If you say your face is fucked up one more time--"

"But if we talked to him," Beverly interrupted, "what if we--Like, what if we talk and the  _ goals _ don't align?"

Richie squinted at her comically, like an ostrich with a longer neck. "What fucking  _ goals? _ "

"I don't know! You were supposed to give us  _ answers! _ "

"It's not like you're giving us a ton to go on!" Stan argued. "You gave us that it happened and that you came here after, and literally  _ nothing else _ ."

Richie leaned forward. "You came here after you came there."

Beverly stood up and dived over the table to try and murder Richie, and Richie's screaming would be ingrained in Eddie's ear for as long as he lived.

\---

Eddie wasn't a relationship counselor, and there was no way him and Richie were, like, the paragon of what a perfect relationship was,  _ and  _ he wasn't always the most knowledgeable in relationship dynamics, but he didn't understand whatever Bill, Ben, and Beverly were doing.

The three of them made sense, with all of Bill's weird questions about Ben and his poetry book, and the weird sort of soft spot he always had for the two of them. They were always the ones to branch off when they were younger, as much as they  _ could _ with all seven of them basically being conjoined septuplets, kind of stuck in their own world, which Eddie never really noticed until then, because he was busy trying to undo his mother's influence, deal with his stack of unresolved feelings for Richie that were growing bigger and bigger the deeper Richie's voice got, and also trying to pass Algebra I. 

Beverly broke up with Bill the first time, when they were practically infants, because she was 'really confused', not because she didn't like him anymore. Eddie guessed she still liked him. And Ben was all artistic expression, and he had that  _ poetry book _ , which Eddie always knew was a little bit about Bill, but he could never confirm it, they all fit together.

It wasn't that Eddie had any actual  _ problem _ with what they were doing, it was just that he had no idea what it  _ was _ exactly, and didn't know how to refer to it whenever he brought it up. Him and Richie call it the 'triple threat' when they talked about it when they weren't around. When they were around, though, they just said...nothing. Eddie thought it would be weirder. There was still this planet-sized elephant in the room, but it didn't inhibit their friendship in any way.

Or, well, that's what Eddie thought.

When they were trying to clear the cobwebs and dust out of the clubhouse from five months of abandonment, while Beverly and Ben sewed up the little networks of moth holes in the hammock, Richie and Stan swept the floors, and Bill, Mike, and Eddie all collected everything inside they weren't going to use during break to either be brought up to keep, or thrown away, because they all decided they were not coming back to Derry after this, everything was fine. It was a freezing fucking day, but they all had coats and gloves on, so it wasn't as bad when they left the door open so Bev's radio (set on a flat cardboard box  _ outside  _ of the hatch door so they wouldn't be cleaning to static) playing some old song from the 60's that Eddie his mom used to play, that Richie and Bill both were singing along to, and Stan was humming. Eddie smiled to himself, pleased they remembered it after so long.

Nothing was out of place there, and Eddie thought for a moment that maybe nothing  _ would _ change, and they would kind of forget they were a thing unless one of them brought it up.

It became apparent to Eddie, maybe way later than everyone else, that there were, also...definite other changes that would take place. He didn't realize this until he went to go use the bathroom at Bill's, in the fancy half-bath that always smelled like hand soap during Bill's birthday party, and walked in on Bill straddling Ben, making out with him on the closed toilet lid, that... _ that _ was one of those times. Ever since May, Eddie got butterflies in that bathroom, because it was the first time he kissed Richie since confessing his feelings to him, and now he could never actually go in there without remembering the sounds of Bill and Ben's heavy breathing mixed with the sound of light wash denim on light wash denim. It was horrific. Pennywise wouldn't have even shown him that.

"Hey," Richie said to him when he passed the living room again, frowning as Eddie walked right past him and to the upstairs bathroom, not even allowed to be annoyed because him and Richie frequently did the same thing, even if he was unwilling to admit it.

It was on his way out, though, that he noticed Bill's bedroom door open, which he knew Bill closed on his way to meet them when they showed up, because the slam of it shook the pictures on the fucking walls. Eddie snuck further down the hall to close it, stopping when he saw Beverly leaning against Bill's open window, smoke clouding out of the window. He stepped further in, nudging the bedroom door and making it squeak on its hinges, startling Beverly and almost making her drop her cigarette.

"Hey," she greeted, shoving her elbow into the hard corner of the window and moving her hand back to try and hide the cigarette by hanging it out of the window.

"I can still see that," Eddie told her, jumping on Bill's bed so Beverly was in front of him, illuminated by the glow of the moon, which was big and yellow like you'd viewed it through a View-Master. "Since when did you start smoking again?"

"About a week after we got here, I've just been hiding it." She took a drag and exhaled slow, like she was trying to savor the feeling. "I won't let Richie find out."

Eddie thanked God. Richie was an obsessive bitch, who only quit smoking because of how much Eddie didn't like it, which surprised Eddie enough on its own, as Richie never gave up anything once he started it. Ever. If Beverly let slip that she'd started smoking again, or Richie knew the option was open, he'd...probably get back into it. And Eddie didn't need a dead ex-future-husband. He didn't. But he didn't need a dead friend either.

"Thanks, but that doesn't mean I'm not gonna give you shit for this." He swiveled so he was laying on his stomach still facing Bev, stealing one of Bill's pillows to rest his head on it. " _ Why'd _ you start smoking again?"

Bev hung her head, her shoulders shaking, and Eddie couldn't tell whether she was laughing or crying. "Nightmares," she whispered, laughing, which dissolved into silence. She put her cigarette out on the side of the outside wall, which Eddie would protest if there weren't already so many burn marks from all of them doing the same over the years. Bill's dad had only yelled at them for it, like, twice. "I keep waking up in the middle of the night, just,  _ steeped _ in my own fucking sweat, and when I peel myself off of my sheets--"

"Gross."

"You're the one who asked."

Eddie shrugged. "True. What are they about?"

She went over to Bill's desk and grabbed some tissues, bundling the cigarette butt inside and throwing it away in his wastepaper basket. Fire hazard, but Eddie said nothing. He smiled as she climbed onto the bed next to him and flopped down.

"No idea. I can  _ guess _ , but it's just...flashes, of shit I can remember but can't...place. Like it's a bunch of fucking puzzle pieces floating in water...and I can't tell where anything goes, and it's all floating away from me. It fucking sucks. Plus there's...everything else going on. I'm...there's a lot of shit in my brain. Smoke  _ fogs _ all the shit. Helps me think about one of the million things."

Eddie snorted. "Yeah, sure, it'll help you die at forty, too. What's going on with--How did you put it? Everything else? That means you and the other two B cups, I assume?"

Bev looked over at him. "B cups? What has Richie done to you?"

Eddie looked right back. "You really wanna know?"

"Oh my  _ god _ ." She swatted at his chest before pushing her hair back off of her forehead. " _ God _ , what am I  _ doing? _ "

"With Bill or in general?"

"Both?" Beverly rolled over and threw her arm over Eddie's stomach. "It's not like I'm...I  _ know _ what we're doing and like it's--I  _ like  _ it--"

"Oh dear god."

"Not what I meant!" She laid her head on its side to look back to Eddie. "Kinda what I meant, but not everything. I love Ben, obviously, but...Bill...I like him too. And obviously he knows that and Ben, like...Ben likes him too, and he likes us, but maybe I always have liked Bill? Like, I didn't break up with him because I  _ didn't  _ like him--"

"He used to think he turned you gay, but he gave up on that when we told him he was being a typical homophobic fourteen-year-old."

"I mean, it's a fair assessment, but no. He wishes." She took her arm off of Eddie to tuck them both of them underneath her body, which Eddie knew from years of sleepovers was just. How she slept. Because she was a freak, but the best kind. "Can I ask you a weird question?"

"It'd be weirder if I said you couldn't."

"...How did you know that you were supposed to…" She trailed off and pursed her lips. "How did you know you were...that loving Richie wasn't just...settling?"

"I'm-- _ what? _ " Eddie's whole body bristled as he inched away, trying to get a better look at Beverly's face. Richie and Beverly were, like, platonic soulmates. Eddie must have heard her wrong.

"Not like--! Not settling like  _ that. _ I mean...How did you know you weren't only in love with him...because you...because you're in _ capable _ of loving anyone, like, outside of...just us?"

Eddie breathed in the question, let it sit heavy in his chest. He didn't think about it like that. He'd  _ thought _ about it, because he thought about everything that had to do with personal shortcomings, and he'd picked apart every single aspect of his feelings for Richie, until he had nothing left to sort through, and it was just Richie left. Eddie didn't think he was incapable of loving anybody else, he just  _ didn't  _ love anybody else except Richie. He didn't think about Richie being the best choice after he failed with the rest of the male population. He thought about Richie being the best choice out of  _ everyone _ , regardless of any other factors or number of choices.

"I'm capable of loving people outside of us. If I wasn't, and I had only Losers to pick from, you and Ben would have never become a thing." 

"Hey!"

"But I  _ don't _ have only Losers to pick from, I have everyone, and I still pick Richie every time." He nudged her. "Speaking of Richie, you're starting to sound a lot like the mental break he had in October, about us not being able to make friends?"

"What if he's  _ right? _ Like, he was worried about us forcing friends  _ out _ , which is dumb, but what if there  _ is _ nobody to force out, because we're incapable of loving outside of our friend group? Like, what if me and Ben would've liked another  _ girl _ , but because we have no female friends, we  _ couldn't? _ All because we went through a shared trauma when we were kids?"

Eddie looked at the ceiling, at the glow in the dark star stickers all stuck on Bill's ceiling, that didn't even glow anymore because they were so old.

"Dude, that shit doesn't even matter anymore. Yeah, it affects every part of our lives, basically, but, you  _ have  _ to think bigger than that. Like, Pennywise for example--"

"Could you imagine if I went to a therapist and told them that my childhood fear was of a clown with a stupid fucking name like Pennywise?" Bev asked, rolling around onto her back so that she could imagine the scene with Eddie. "Could you imagine if I told her we couldn't say his name until we were seven-fucking-teen?"

"You're gonna have to when we can afford therapists. All that shit is coming out, dude, I don't need it in me anymore."

Beverly looked at him. " _ In _ you?"

"Yes," he replied, and then continued, "So, Pennywise was a weird fucking clown from outer space, from a god or whatever, right? And, if  _ something _ made that fucking thing, like by hand sat down and crafted that fucker from nothing and sent him down here just to be a pain in my ass, then that means there's  _ something _ out here bigger than us. And I already fought It, I'm not trying to have my ass handed to me by a weird deity because I'm trying to fuck with the flow of life."

"Eddie, you are almost  _ always _ fucking with the flow of life! You're the most stressed out guy there  _ is _ ."

Eddie laughed, but nodded. " _ Yeah _ , but I don't question, like, big things. Honestly? Sometimes I feel like all the shit I worry about, just--I feel like I'm not really worried about what I'm worried about; I just need to flip the fuck out about it, just so I know I wasn't careless with the events of my life though. Like, loving Richie. I don't think about  _ not _ loving him long enough to ever worry about it. Richie loving me? Sure, yeah, but once I worry about it, and it's out of the way, I can say I'm stupid and move the fuck on. If I don't freak out, and then something happens, like, Richie and Ben drive off in a hippy van to go do shrooms in the Andes, I can at least have the satisfaction of being right."

"Confusing as shit, but wise," Beverly commented. "I just don't wanna fuck everything up. I was an asshole when I was fourteen, and I didn't...being with  _ both  _ of them is...nice. Not like everything makes sense or anything, but some things do.  _ More  _ things do. And I like that. Like all the shit mini-me was worried about all comes together to get some weird, abstract puzzle. I don't get it, but it's complete now."

"The concept of better halves, or better thirds in your case, is fake. You're a whole person without them."

"You're right, but still. Maybe it's not me that's the puzzle. Maybe I'm a whole other puzzle."

"You'd be one of those weird mechanical puzzles that are always on sale at Border's."

"Stan likes those." She laid in silence for another moment, not saying anything. "Thanks, Eddie."

Eddie smiled and sat up, kissing Beverly on the forehead before hopping off of Bill's bed. His heart felt lighter than it had earlier, as they shuffled down the hall, walking down the hall with an almost syncopated grace, a gentle hum of peace flowing between them that made his anxieties float. They didn't disappear, because if he had nothing to worry about, he would worry about not worrying, but they were less demanding. He could get to them whenever he had time.

The loud arguing of Stan and Bill shook him from his own head, as he weaved his way through the various thrown throw pillows and bowls of chips and party mix for their sad, but on-brand birthday party, to plop back down next to Richie on the couch. He smelled like coconut and lavender, swinging his arm over Eddie's shoulders and pressing his smile against his hair. Eddie grinned and watched as Beverly squeezed in between Bill, who was still arguing with Stan over which of them was more embarrassing with affection, each having their own arguments for one another, and Ben, who had been sitting staring dopily at Bill, but now was inching away from him so Beverly wouldn't have to resort to shoving in order for them to make room.

Richie kissed the side of his head, an asshole greeting from a man who wanted nothing but to embarrass him. Eddie loved him. "Everything okay?"

Stan threw down his paper plate, which held nothing but two potato chips and the remains of Bill's melting ice cream cake, which had a happy clown painted on it in gel icing, because Richie was an asshole with bad ideas and Stan was an asshole who enabled them at the grocery store. Mike was half asleep, his own slice of ice cream cake dripping onto his pant leg, which Stan failed to notice as he was screaming himself hoarse. Beverly and Ben were whispering discreetly, Ben nodding rapidly along and responding, before he kissed her and they just watched Bill go absolutely off the rails.

Eddie turned to him, looked at Richie and his square glasses with rounded edges ('By taking the edge  _ off _ , you actually add more edginess to the whole look' in Richie's words), his wide, bright face and brown eyes that made Eddie want to forget every memory he ever had of Richie, just so he could relive them for the first time again, and the beauty mark on the side of his nose that was usually hidden by the bridge of his glasses, which were slipping down. He felt the weight of his ring on his finger, darting his eyes down just to see the same ring around Richie's neck.

"I'm fine."

"Damn right," Richie replied, wiggling his eyebrows and knocking their foreheads together.

Their nice fucking moment was ruined by the  _ screaming  _ of four angry assholes calling a violation and the sound of Mike jostling awake, promptly spilling his whole pool of ex-ice cream cake onto the living room rug. Stan screamed, Beverly laughed, and Bill ran up to get cleaning supplies, which they'd used so many times before, because this rug had seriously taken a beating over the past couple years from them alone. Ben pursed his lips so tightly to keep himself from laughing that it looked like he didn't have any lips at all, and Mike was trying to dab at the mess on the floor with shaded gray napkins that said 'FIRST HOLY COMMUNION' on them with a cross. Because Stan and Richie had also been in charge of decorations.

Eddie wouldn't have had it any other way.

\---

Historically, following Richie blindly had never ended  _ terribly _ . Like, it ended up in embarrassing places or hilarious ones, one time he'd taken them to sign up for a new dentist in California because Eddie had mentioned that they needed to do it, or to a juggling class Richie failed and Eddie refused to participate in at first, but neither of those were necessarily bad. Eddie hated the fucking dentist, but also he didn't love the idea of dentures in his twenties, so he had to consider it a positive, and juggling was just...weird...especially since he was unexpectedly good at it once Richie wore him down enough and convinced him to try. Despite this, trudging through snow in the dead of night, being guided by Richie, whose hands kept slipping from Eddie's because Eddie was wearing two pairs of gloves, he doesn't understand how this could, in any way, be good.

The wind had picked up since they left Stan's house, with Stan walking them out, because Richie told him whatever was going on and he was cool with it, apparently. Which, if anything, made Eddie  _ more  _ concerned, because it had to be big if Stan was told and they had a time blocked out, because it meant Richie was  _ planning  _ something, and whenever there was a huge plan Eddie didn't know about, it meant it was a weird, out of left field emotional event Eddie couldn't even prepared for.

Eddie shivered as the wind as the cold air hit his bare face, feeling like pin pricks stabbing into his already numbed skin, as Richie pulled him along the sidewalk. Stan's old snow boots were covered in slush, which seeped into the toe of one and soaked the newspaper Eddie stuffed in the boots to make them fit, and both pairs of socks he had on. He longed for the warmth of their bed at Stan's house, but would settle for the warmth inside his own jacket, compared to the frigidity he felt in his hands and feet. Richie's hand was the only thing keeping his left hand from frostbite, and Eddie almost worried about his right, which was shoved in his pocket to prevent actual loss of digits.

" _ Stop _ ," Eddie complained, almost flinching at the disruption of the heavy silence pressing down on them, and shuffling ahead to where Richie was walking ahead of him, almost vibrating in his own excitement. "If you go too far ahead, I will just turn around and go back to Stan's."

Richie laughed and walked slower, letting his long fucking spider legs fall in step with Eddie's. He took both of their hands in his to slot them together tighter, squeezing Eddie's hand and letting them go back to where they were between them. Eddie didn't say anything, as they walked down the street, the entire town bathed in orange from the street lights. His discomfort at the cold ran into confusion as Richie turned on the road to near the Kissing Bridge, lips pinched tight together to suppress  _ something _ , but Eddie couldn't tell what.

"You're not gonna kill me or anything, right?" Eddie asked, trying both to prevent himself from freaking out and also break up the oppressive silence that made the whole situation feel heavy. "Right?"

"No, Eds, I'm not gonna kill you. At least, not physically." He started to speed up again, to get through the dark tunnel and to the other side.

Eddie's heart dropped to his fucking stomach as Richie slid forward and almost cracked his head open on the ground. Eddie covered his mouth to prevent himself from screaming, as Richie recovered and stood completely still, taking a step forward to test the waters. Eddie looked down, placing his foot on the places where cars had driven past and worn down the slush and ice, tip-toeing the track and following Richie, who produced a flashlight from his jacket pocket, which, for  _ what?  _ He swung the flashlight back and forth, until they came out on the other side of the tunnel and he shined it on the fences leading out of it, where hundreds of markings had been cut into the wood. Actually, Eddie had--

"Why are we here?" Eddie demanded, scanning the entire fence to try and find what he'd carved into this same fence years ago, so he could nonchalantly lean against it and block Richie from his anger fueled gay vandalism.

"'Cause we're never coming back," Richie muttered. He took his fogged up glasses off to peer at the fence, so close he could actually kiss the Kissing Bridge, and kept searching. Eddie found his atrocity, leaning against it with half his weight, the other half braced, just in case he was standing on ice and didn't know it.

"So you  _ are  _ here to kill me," Eddie said, trying to figure out if the way he was standing made it, like, super fucking obvious that he was covering the exact thing Richie was probably looking for, but unable to picture himself in the third person.

Richie rolled his eyes, but he was smiling, shining the light over the fence before zeroing in on something. "There it is!" He shoved his flashlight in his pocket again and Eddie was, once again, confused. Before Eddie could try and look at whatever he found, Richie covered it up and furrowed his eyebrows at him. "Why are you standing like that? Wha-Fuckin' are you Danny Zuko or some shit? Stand like a regular person."

"Oh, fuck off. You look like a stick of string cheese and  _ you're  _ telling  _ me  _ to stand like a regular person? Maybe  _ look  _ like a regular--"

"Eds, baby, shush," Richie took Eddie's shoulders and turned them, so Richie was standing against the bridge and Eddie was directly in front of him. "Okay,  _ so _ \--"

"You're actually scaring me."

Richie shot daggers at him. " _ SO _ ," he repeated firmly, "I was,  _ okay.  _ I didn't actually have a plan for this, 'cause I didn't think I'd be doing it for a couple more months, but since we all agreed the Loser apartment is happening, and we're not actually spending the summer here, I just...I wanted to do it now. Well, sort of. I wanted to show you it now, and then I'm gonna do what I wanted to do before here in a different spot than here, but it will--"

"Rich."

"Okay. Uh,  _ basically _ , when we were younger, I had a huge crush on you, which you know about now, obviously--"

"You had a crush on me?" Eddie gaped, hand scandalously placed over his chest. "What are you, gay or something?"

Richie put his hands over his heart. "You really are becoming more and more like me every day. Beverly would be so disappointed."

Eddie smiled and rolled his eyes, realizing that, in some way, Richie was right. But, Richie also found them a new dentist, bought little sorting shelves for his desk, had finding their  _ entire  _ friend group therapists on his to-do list. He had a fucking to-do list. Eddie was less scared of them becoming the same person, more worried that one day they would flip and Richie would be the neurotic, obsessive dick in the relationship, and Eddie would have to pack up his dignity and become a stand-up comedian.

"Just keep saying what you were saying, asshole," Eddie mumbled, crossing his arms and wiggling his one dry sock and the other soaked one so his toes didn't actually fall off.

"Yeah, right. I was...mad, almost? I was mad, because of  _ course  _ we had to live in the world where loving you was wrong, and the world where you were my best friend and I had to live so fucking close to you and I could never actually  _ be  _ close to you, and I couldn't tell anyone, so I got really angry and exploded, so I--" He shoved his hand in his pocket and whipped out the flashlight, clicking it on and showing Eddie the bridge.

At first, Eddie didn't see it, but Richie closed in on a blocky, uneven 'R+E' carved into the bridge. A flush of heat washed over Eddie's body, the dead of winter now feeling like the hottest day of the year. His hands started shaking he was so fucking overwhelmed. And cold. He was also fucking cold.

"I did that. 'Cause, like I said, I couldn't tell anybody, and I couldn't do anything  _ about  _ it, and I didn't wanna tell you and make you uncomfortable or get you to hate me, and I tried to start, like, a journal, but it felt dumb and I couldn't keep up with it, so I came here, because I deserved a fucking  _ shred  _ of what everybody else got. Every kid has come here at some point and carved their shit on here, I just wanted to be  _ normal _ , and I  _ couldn't _ . It was driving me crazy."

Eddie nodded, bringing the rough material of his gloves up to his eyes to wipe his tears, not even caring that there would be red marks under his eyes the next day.

"Yeah,  _ yeah _ . I--" He stuttered and waved his hands around. "Gimme the fucking flashlight."

Richie was the confused one this time, but he didn't ask any questions as he handed him the huge fucking industrial camping flashlight that Eddie had no idea where he acquired it. Eddie stepped away from Richie and shone the light on his own  _ masterpiece _ , which was way fucking worse in his own opinion, the 'R' in that big fat heart staring at him like it mocked him.

"Wait, what?" Richie whispered.

"I did that for you," Eddie admitted. "You, uh, you did something stupid that day, I don't remember really  _ what _ , but it was you, so it was dumb, and I was so fucking pissed off by how much I wanted you. It was like I'd...swallowed my own heart, and I was choking on it, just caught in my fucking throat because I couldn't  _ tell  _ you. A-And if I couldn't tell you, it meant I couldn't do anything  _ else  _ either. So. Here. It was so  _ public _ . Like, like you said;  **everyone** comes here, but at the same time, nobody would know that it was  _ me  _ who came here. It was like…" He flailed his hands around to make his point, but Richie wasn't looking at him.

He dropped to his knees, and stared at the carving Eddie made, tracing over it with his finger. He reached up and brushed the pile of snow off of the top of the fence so it wouldn't fall on him, just so he could keep staring at it. Eddie didn't want to interrupt whatever he was doing, so he walked up behind him with the flashlight and waited for him.

"It was like screaming to the whole world," Richie whispered. "But without saying anything."

Eddie nodded, but Richie was still transfixed on the bridge. "Yeah."

Richie turned back to him, tears making his eyes shine in the flashlight. He had the hint of a smile on his face, a weird air of calm around him. "I was gonna propose to you here."

Eddie's brain scrambled and then shut down. His internal fans were whirring in his mind. "What?"

"'S what I wanted to do at the end of summer. I was thinking, like, just 'cause we're technically engaged doesn't mean we have to get married right away, and I--I get that it's stupid like we already have rings, and an engagement is basically just a fancy word that means nothing--"

" _ Richie _ ," Eddie breathed, stepping forward. He tipped Richie's head back and kissed him, trying to push all of his feelings into this one fucking kiss. "Ask me. Fucking, say the speech, do whatever, whatever you wanted to say.  _ Ask  _ me. It means something to me." He stepped back to where he was before, so Richie could continue like nothing happened. "I want you to ask me."

"I don't have a ring or anything," Richie said. "I was supposed to work a shit ton at Lunar this summer to try and buy you, like,  _ anything _ . But I didn't have the time or the money, so--" He shoved his hands in his pocket and pulled out a little plastic container, the ones from those little machines you put quarters in and crank and it pops out of the metal door, and Eddie laughed out loud. "It was all I could get on such short notice, but I knew it would make you laugh, and, really, that's all I ever want--"

"Shut  _ up _ ." Eddie could barely contain the smile on his face. It felt like his face was going to split in two.

"It's true, I swear. Any day was a good fucking day if I could get you to stop doing the stupid scowling shit you used to do when you were pretending to be mad at me."

"I did not--Shut up! Keep talking."

"Shut up  _ and  _ keep talking? You're kind of giving me mixed signals here, Eds."

Eddie sighed and rolled his eyes. "Why did you pick Derry to do this? There were a million other places in California alone, why did you pick our literal hell on earth? I'm--That sounded so mean, I just meant--"

"I know what you meant," Richie reassured. "And I get it, but...we went through a lot here, and most of it sucked, yeah...but I met you here. I fell in love with you here. Yeah, I never want to come back, 'cause all the shitty things It did to us and took from us, but I can't just, like, pack up all my fucked up memories and walk away, knowing it gave me the best thing in my life. Like it or not, and trust me, I don't fucking like it, but Derry is kind of the main set of our shitty gay romance movie, dude."

"That's fair," Eddie choked out. He shuddered and tears dripped down his face, but he didn't try to stop them. They were warranted considering the setting.

"So, I didn't wanna pick some weird garden in Cali to propose to you that meant nothing, even if me and Bev did look at some just to see. Wanted it to mean something to both of us, and I wasn't picking our dorm, 'cause concrete walls don't make for the most intimate setting. So I chose here." He turned away from Eddie and ran his fingers over Eddie's carved heart, then reached back to touch his own. "I wanted to show you this when we first got together, but I thought it would be cooler if I waited until we got into a fight or something and you broke up with me, so I could be like oh Eddie, dear, take me back! Please! And I'd show you this and we would fuck on the side of the road, or some shit--"

"'M gonna fucking kill you," Eddie mumbled, looking up at the sky.

"But then I thought this would be better. A better use for it." He cleared his throat and looked back at Eddie. Thinking of  _ something _ , he straightened his posture and brought one of his legs up so he was on one knee. He popped open the little plastic bubble to reveal what was maybe the most hideous silver plastic ring with a fat, round, acid green gem in the middle. Eddie  _ loved _ it. "So...whaddya say?"

"I  _ say _ ...I can't believe I'm fucking engaged to someone who wants to do comedy for a career, when there is  _ nothing _ funny about the sheer amount of emotions I'm going through right now, fuckweed." He dragged his hands over his face and kneeled so he was wedged in the corner between Richie's raised knee and the one straight down. " _ Yeah _ , yes. I'm saying yes, asshole."

Richie's grin made it look like morning with how bright it was, as he grabbed Eddie's waist and kissed him. Eddie laughed against his mouth and wrapped his arms around the back of Richie's head, not even caring that tears were still pouring down his face. He just got fucking  _ proposed  _ to, he wasn't going to be able to think about anything else for a month, a year, the rest of his fucking life, that he would be spending with  _ Richie _ . Richie, Richie, Richie.

Eddie made a noise of protest as Richie pulled back. "Hate to ruin the moment, but I genuinely can't feel my fucking hands right now."

Eddie laughed and broke away from him, pulling Richie up to stand with him. "I told you to wear two pairs of gloves, dickhole. It's fucking freezing in the middle of the night, and we've lived in California for the past four months. We fucking forgot what cold was actually supposed to feel like. I'm not marrying you if you get frostbite and they have to cut off your toes or some shit. I need a husband who can wear sandals."

"Feet your thing, eh?" Richie pulled Eddie into his side and kissed his head through his thick knit cap. "That's okay, I'll marry you anyway."

Eddie screeched and shoved Richie into a snowbank, not even getting angry when Richie didn't let go of him and he collapsed into the snow right with him. He wouldn't have expected any less when it came to him and Richie. They were eternally the clumsiest pair of people on earth, even if Eddie typically wasn't like that on his own. It was like a plague Richie spread whenever they were together, that Eddie didn't mind having. It was the only way he would want to be.

Richie brushed snow off of Eddie's face and ignored his own, knowing that wet gloves wiping off snow-covered glasses helped literally nothing. Eddie grumbled as Richie leaned down and kissed the space between his eyebrows.

"I really love you," Richie whispered, like now that they weren't protected by the dark privacy the kissing bridge offered, the empty streets would somehow turn on them and put them in danger. "You're everything I ever wanted, and I'm glad I get to be able to know you and  _ be  _ loved by you." He kissed his nose and repeated his age old phrase: "You're my dream boy."

Eddie looked up at him, not sure whether his red face was from the cold or everything else, as Richie flinched when melted snow dripped off of his glasses and landed on his cheek. Eddie inched upwards so he could kiss Richie, which was difficult because his lips were numb, and pulled away.

"Take me home," Eddie said, knowing he didn't need to say anything back for Richie to get it, standing up so he could pull Richie out of the snow and actually maybe get to Stan's house before hypothermia set in.

Richie walked behind Eddie, wrapping his arms around Eddie's chest and walking with his head on top of Eddie's. "Wanna force Stan to make us hot chocolate when we get there?"

"Oh my god,  _ yes _ ."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from LA devotee by panic at the disco -- all chapter titles are lyrics of songs from [this playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0EuuOVEkpNNWo433QgFFkY?si=MaXBCv1USTWyV497TuCVlw) !! which I made for this fic series !! sorry for the late post !!
> 
> thank you for reading !! talk to me on tumblr @sunflowersocialist


	8. take me back home

The thought of going back to California should be the most relieving thing in the world for him, but Eddie couldn't shake the sickening feeling of returning back to school. It felt like he'd just finished finals, and that wave of anxiety had washed right back over him like it'd never left. He could feel his heart pounding in his fucking ears, his vision swimming as everyone got up from their diner booth. His body had become stone, his arms and legs stiff like he was lying on the morgue table after having just been murdered by his English prof. He stared at the swirling table in front of them, noticing distantly as Richie wiped ketchup he spilled off of the table and tossed the napkins on their neat stack of plates. They were going to fucking reek of grease until they stopped at a hotel and were able to shower, which wasn't for two more  _ days  _ , unlike Ben and Beverly, who got to bathe in airport smell (airports apparently had a specific smell, according to Stan. Sonia thought airports were hubs of 'foreign disease' and planes were death traps, so Eddie wouldn't know) before going to their dorms to shower, which made Eddie feel the oncoming sense of dread in a new way. It was disgusting, the luxuries that blood relatives and the middle-middle class got to have.

Eddie heard the chattering of the diner's other guests, like white noise banging against the walls of his skull. It spread down to his fingertips, into his teeth, like his body was filled with bees and he couldn't figure out how they got there, stinging his nerve endings relentlessly. He could feel himself struggling to keep his dinner in his stomach, praying to literally anybody who would listen that his heart rate calmed down before he lost his fucking mind.

It wasn't like he could stay in Derry, or that he wanted to. He was still going to get in that fucking car and go back to school, but it was hard to return to a place where everything felt like so  _ much _ . He was free in California, but in a way that jumping off a cliff was freeing, when you don't know what's at the bottom. Anything could happen in California, and as much as he hated Derry, it was safer there. Eddie had literally taken part in killing the thing that made it dangerous, and yeah, he had to be depressed and closeted and trapped in his mother's house for the rest of his life, but he knew what all of that felt like. Start of his second semester, searching for an apartment, signing a lease. He didn't know how to actually succeed in doing  _ any  _ of that. What if he failed? What if he...what if--

"Eds?" Richie whispered, shaking Eddie's arm as he slid out of the booth. Eddie looked up at him and Richie's face fell, ignoring the bells chiming above the door signaling that all of their friends were leaving. He looked around them to see if nobody was watching before taking Eddie's hand. "You okay?"

Eddie blinked rapidly, flinching as tears hit his cheek. "I, uh, I'm--freaking out. It's--" he gestured to his own face. "Dying."

"O-kay...what do you wanna do? Breathe or some shit? You wanna sit here in silence?" He squeezed Eddie's hand when he didn't answer. "Literally, I can do cartwheels up and down the aisles if you want, you just have to tell me."

"No," Eddie choked. "Nothing. I'm fine." He rolled his eyes when Richie still didn't let him get out of the booth. "They have a flight to catch, c'mon. I'm just freaking out."

Richie studied him before nodding, sliding back to the end and getting out. "Yeah, but they have two hours and you're freaking out right  _ now. _ Like, is it passing out panic level or, just, regular Eddie level?"

"I resent the fact that there's a 'regular' level, but yeah. Regular." Eddie slid out with him and towards the door. 

They stood together on the sidewalk, trying not to make it look like they were standing together too...romantically, or whatever they had to do so that some asshole wouldn't call them out, two seconds before they were about to leave, and take out their own weird personal hatred on them as they made their way to Bill's car. Cars passed idly by as Eddie took a deep breath, knocking against Richie as calmly as he could, just for the comfort of knowing he was still there.

"I'm scared that going back to California means something is gonna go wrong, cause we don't know about anything there," he explained, watching Richie look down the street to see if they could go. "Here we know, like, the consequences of all of our shit. It's dumb."

Richie smiled at him. "I mean, kind of. The consequences of all of our shit in Derry is just getting the shit beat out of us for, like, breathing. Cali is home now, baby! We never have to come back here." Richie looked both ways and crossed the street to where everyone was still standing outside waiting for them, with Eddie following feeling partly better. They definitely all looked stupid, seven assholes in various states of pajamas getting into a normal car for five fucking people, but Eddie didn't mind. 

He stopped when they got to Bill's car, the worst idea he's ever had popping into his head and refusing to leave. "Wait, Rich."

Richie, who was already smothering Stan in a weird bear hug that Stan looked like he both hated and loved to be a part of, broke away from him to stand right in front of Eddie.

"Yes my love?" His eyes were slightly squinted, studying Eddie's face with a laser focus, like they had some weird telepathy thing that Richie had always known about but never mentioned to him. Not finding anything, which, why  _ would  _ he, Richie just fucking stared at him and waited for him to say something, which he wouldn’t have even had to do if he just skipped whatever the fuck that just was. 

"We're never coming back?" Eddie asked, just to be sure. "Like, college dropout, going bankrupt, one of us dies, we're never coming back?"

Richie nodded slowly, still confused. "Yeah, that's the...general plan. Why?"

"So...Derry consequences...they won't--We don't have to worry about them anymore."

"Ex _ actly _ !" He cheered. "That's the sp--"

Eddie didn't even wait for him to finish talking before pulling Richie in to kiss him, right there in the middle of the street. Richie made a noise of surprise, but then melted into it, trying to push Eddie against the back of Bill's car, to gain leverage on the situation, but Eddie refused. He wanted every single person in their shit town who could see them, to see them, to know that no matter how many times they tried to beat it out of them, that they didn't change a damn thing. And they never fucking would.

"Uh, Eddie?" Bill spoke up, tearing Eddie out of the fucking  _ moment _ . "Isn't that your mom?"

Eddie pulled back like Richie bit him. He whipped around to face the direction Bill was facing, his soul dropping onto the concrete as he saw all five foot three of Sonia Kaspbrak looking so fucking angry steam was just about coming out of her ears. She was bright red, in her huge winter coat and hat, body frozen in time before charging in their direction.

"Fuck!" Eddie yelled, as they all piled into the car, Eddie in the passenger seat (because he was the shortest) with Bill in the driver's seat. Their seats were pushed up as far as they could go without being uncomfortable, so Beverly and Stan could sit on the floor (the second and fourth shortest respectively), as Bill tore out of their parking spot and out of town, barely avoiding hitting Eddie's mom in the middle of the street.

Beverly leaned forward on the center console to look at him. "You okay?"

The thought of his mother knowing he was gay, and that he was with Richie, would usually have terrified him before this very moment, but now it just...didn't. He would probably have to do some soul searching later to, like, assess the whole situation, but other than that, he felt weirdly free. He understood that he never had to come out to his mom, and until that moment, he'd never planned to. He could've lived the rest of his life in domestic gay peace with Richie, until he heard from some weird distant relative that his mother...died. He didn't ever expect her to find out, but he couldn't change any of it now that it happened, and he wasn't going to waste that time with his friends worrying about it if he couldn't do anything about it. For maybe the first time in his life, he was totally fine. 

Eddie smiled at her, his initial panic subsiding and leaving, just. Relief. "I feel fucking great."

"Really?" Stan asked, from somewhere behind him. "I thought you'd be having a panic attack by now."

"Me too, but I just...don't. We're never coming back here, and my mom would rather die than go to California, so...there's nothing she can do to me now. I'm...it's kind of liberating?"

"I get it," Beverly assured him. "Just checking."

Eddie smiled and looked back at her, noting quietly that Richie refused to look at him from the backseat, where he was combing his hands through Stan's hair. "Thanks."

\---

The moon shone down on them as Mike and Bill ran into the gas station, with Mike carrying a torn out notebook page listing the extensive amount of snacks they asked for, since they skipped their normal drive-thru trip and haven't eaten since the diner, and Bill tripping on the curb in front of the store. Stan was leaning against the outside of the car, waiting for Bill to come back out and let him know he paid for the gas they needed. Richie had been driving for three hours out of his six hour shift, barely speaking to anyone the entire time, despite the fact that he'd just woken up hours ago and he usually had enough energy in his body to power a small town even when he was half asleep.

Richie just sort of stared down at his lap as Eddie looked at him, like they were on a weird first date after being friends for a couple months, not best friends for almost a decade and a half and technically engaged. Eddie unbuckled his seatbelt so he could turn to face him fully, rolling his eyes as Richie glanced at him before dragging his eyes back to face forward. Like he’d be snapped at for looking at Eddie, who was very clearly trying to get Richie to look at him.

"I kissed you,you know." Eddie said, rolling his eyes as Richie slumped forward like Eddie pulled the plug on his life support. "You don't have to feel guilty, or be weird about it."

It had been nine  _ hours  _ since they left Derry, watching the sleepy and sporadic skyline disappear into the distance and become obscured by the thickets of forest that surrounded their town. Eddie didn't even know what state they were in, somewhere rural, miles of nothing surrounding the gas station except for the one mechanic right across the street.

Unable to feel content without Richie babbling for the entire drive, Eddie sat and watched Richie twiddle his thumbs in the back seat until he fell asleep, and then followed right behind him. He didn't wake up until Richie was climbing into the driver's seat so Bill could sleep. Whenever Eddie opened his eyes, he found Richie intently staring at the road ahead with more attention than he ever gave it before, that told Eddie that Richie was definitely watching him sleep. Eddie was happy to know Richie wasn't mad at him, that he still fell into one of Eddie's favorite habits of watching him while he slept and then trying to deny it. It's what he always did, except for on really slow nights when Eddie woke up, just from the weight of his gaze, and Richie was too sleep deprived, or too proud in his affections, to turn away from him. Other than that, though, silence. He hadn't said a word to him.

Eddie wanted this conversation to go as quickly as possible, just so they could have the whole thing at once, not broken up into parts over the day and a half they had to drive, because he would actually rip the keys out of the ignition just to make Richie stop looking like a kicked puppy.

"...I'm...not being weird," Richie muttered. "I should have noticed your mom on the street before you kissed me."

"When would you have noticed?" Eddie asked. "When I was grabbing you by the neck and breaking your two front teeth? I'm  _ fine _ . You didn't disrespect my fuckin'...wishes or whatever, I kissed  _ you _ . I knew what I was doing. And you blaming yourself for it isn't gonna change the fact that she knows now." Richie swallowed, still not looking at him. "Plus, she's probably gonna think it's just because California is a den of hedonism and sin, and focus all her energy on trying long distance exorcisms, because she's a bigoted asshole, and all that started way before either of us were even born. None of that is your fault."

Richie nodded as he mulled over Eddie's words, looking over at him. "See, I know you're right, but at the same time I kind of want to bathe in my own self pity for another hour."

"Too fucking bad, I hate looking at your sad, gay face."

"You love my sad gay face," Richie smiled, his eyes focused on Eddie's leg. "I know what happens when coming out goes...wrong. I don't wanna know what would've happened if your mom didn't move at a glacial pace."

Eddie wanted to argue, to say his mother was abusive, yes, but she never hit him, but then he realized Richie's parents never laid a finger on him before he came out to them. They'd loved him before then, probably would have fought anyone who tried to hurt him, but they fucking lied and put their love on a pedestal Richie was born to never reach. The deep seated anger Eddie would never let go of panged heavy in the depth of his chest, but he didn't say anything. The busted lip Richie kept picking at was  _ just  _ starting to heal. 

"My mom moves like molasses. We could've sat there for two hours and she still wouldn't have caught up."

Richie raised his eyebrows in agreement as everyone flooded back into the car. Eddie took the bag Mike handed him and threw Richie his bag of Combos, ripping his cheese puffs out and all but shredding the entire bag trying to open them. Richie opened his and tossed them in his lap, screeching out of the parking lot, in a way that definitely would leave lasting damage to Bill's car.

\---

Eddie watched through half lidded eyes as the pitch black night stretched out into an abstract horizon out of the car window, constellations of stars Eddie didn't know the names of passing slowly through the sky like they were floating by, idle in the wind. Richie was awake, shining a little flashlight at the weathered copy of a Star Wars novel he'd already finished before.

Something to do, Eddie guessed, since Richie's sleep schedule had devolved to how it used to be when they were kids, when Eddie didn't share a bed with him and force them both to go to sleep at usual hours. As much as it used to bother Eddie, when he'd look over to Richie during a class to ask for help in something or to pass a note back, and found him dead asleep on his desk, or when Richie would come to his house in the middle of the night and try to get him to play Scrabble with him, because he just had the most in _ sane  _ idea, it was just another thing that made Richie, Richie now. Though, Eddie couldn't really say shit. Over break, he somehow grew an obsession for napping intermittently throughout the day, and now it was gonna take some serious work to get them anywhere near a normal sleep schedule again. 

Eddie hummed and lifted his head from Richie's shoulder, breathing in the 'Black Ice' air freshener in Bill's car and wrinkling his nose. Richie's truck, while being the vehicle equivalent of a tire fire on ice, always smelled like cherry flavored candy and leather seats, a combination of which always made Eddie's face heat up just from how many times they'd made out there over the summer. He wiped his mouth and ignored the drool he left on Richie's shirt, sitting up straight in the horrible, raised middle seat and looking over to Bill passed out next to him. 

"Where are we?" Eddie whispered, looking at Richie, who seemed to only  _ just _ notice that he wasn't actually on Hoghri, and instead in a hatchback barreling down some country road that looked like a perfect future crime scene. He looked over to him, his pupils as wide as the fucking moon in the darkness, before shrugging and returning back to his book. Eddie rolled his eyes and looked at Mike through the rearview mirror. 

"Indiana? Just about passing through Indianapolis, I think. Unless we're really lost, then Canada."

Richie laughed. "Of course. How long till we get to the hotel?"

Eddie shoved his watch under Richie's flashlight to check. "Twenty minutes? Give or take."

Mike groaned. "Thank  _ God _ . I'm tired of just staring at the road. This is why people fall asleep when they drive. A car of sleeping people with nobody to talk to, and then when someone does wake up, you're so tired from driving you don't even wanna talk anymore."

"Thanks, Mike," Richie said. "You really make me feel better about myself, dude."

"What do you want from me?" Mike asked, smiling at Richie in the rearview mirror. "I'm not necessarily in a position to have a stimulating conversation."

"We don't have to  _ converse _ , Mikey. We can  _ gossip  _ like everyone does on road trips."

Eddie looked at him. "Since when?"

"Since now!" He slapped his book shut and clicked his flashlight off. "What do you wanna gossip about?"

"I have literally never wanted to have a conversation less in my life." Mike made a left turn onto the road towards Indianapolis, and Eddie squeezed his eyes shut as he prepared for the onslaught of bright lights that would be other cars and a place with a population over thirty.

"Come  _ on _ , we can talk about boys! Or something. Or, uhhh," Richie looked up at the ceiling. "How's Stan doing? He good?"

Mike rolled his eyes. "Is this your way of trying to worm information out of me about Stan?"

"...Maybe...but if you do I'll tell you stuff about Eddie."

"Not if you want to  _ live _ ," Eddie mumbled, leaning his head back on Richie's shoulder, avoiding the wet spot, and shutting his eyes again. Twenty minutes of sleep was basically a gold mine of time, and he planned to strike.

"You've known Stan longer than I have!" Mike pointed out, merging onto a highway as cars started to rush by them. "Anything you want to know you probably already know."

"Not true! We know  _ nothing  _ about  **you** and Stan, c' _ mon _ . We're gonna live together in a few months, so we're gonna find out anyway. Somehow. Through torture or otherwise."

Mike glanced back at him. "...Then you shouldn't care, anyway, 'cause you'll just find out in a few months."

Richie groaned and rested his head on top of Eddie's. "Tell us a  _ story _ , Michael. We want to know how you and Stan began your torrid love affair turned fairy tale."

" _ Affair? _ " Mike gasped. "We did not have an  _ affair!  _ We were two consenting teenagers with no marital...commitments! There was no  _ affair _ . I just...liked him. He was neurotic, because all of us were,  _ are _ , but he was...nice. Like, safe." He shot his eyes right at Richie in the mirror. "He also didn't talk about how big his dick was all the time, which was  _ appreciated _ ."

Richie shrugged his shoulders, jostling the thoughts in Eddie's fucking brain, putting his hands up in surrender. "Hey, when ya got the biggest pumpkin in the patch, you don't keep that shit a secret. You take it to the county fair to enter it into the contest. Ain't that right, Eddie?"

Eddie swatted at Richie's arm, covering Richie's hand with his. "Shh, I'm asleep. Not commenting."

Mike sighed. "Unfortunately, your silence speaks volumes."

Eddie flipped him off in the mirror.

Richie kissed the top of Eddie's head, as if he was reminding himself that he could. The same sudden, rising need of affection that Eddie got sometimes. The comfortable wave of warmth at the connection came over him as he rubbed his cheek on Richie's shoulder, falling too quickly back into sleep to say anything. They were sharing a blanket, but Eddie felt like he didn't need it, wrapped in the soft contentment of the late hour and Richie's presence. 

"Aw, maybe we can have a double gay wedding," Richie said, tangling his and Eddie's hands together. "Me and Mike in our tuxedo shirts, Stan and Eddie, yelling at us for our tuxedo shirts."

"I like how you assume a wedding is happening if you wear a tuxedo shirt," Eddie smiled. 

Mike laughed so loudly Stan stirred, but he just pulled his blanket up to his chin again, huffing and turning away from them. Mike didn't flinch, just let his laughter fizzle out naturally, knowing Stan wouldn't mind if he woke up to it, but also being mindful of not actually seeing if he was right. Stan  _ hated  _ being woken up for dumb reasons, like the one time Richie woke him to ask,  _ hypothetically _ , if Beggin' Strips for dogs would be kosher, because  _ technically  _ it wasn't pork, and Stan tried to smother him with a pillow. 

"Come on! You're gonna take my ring and agree to get up on an altar...or...chuppah...Vegas chapel, whatever, and say you'll love me no matter what, but  _ then  _ back out over a piece of  _ clothing?  _ Ice fucking cold, Kaspbrak." Richie replied, smiling. "We can have a big fat cake with all of our names on each of the tiers, and we can take turns chopping up those little bride and groom wedding toppers so we can have four grooms."

"We're not--No," Mike interrupted. "Besides, I'm not…" he trailed off, his head turning to face Stan for a moment, studying him, but Eddie didn't know for what. "I don't wanna get my hopes up on something that might never happen."

A heavy silence filled the space. It was almost like if Eddie cracked the window, it would all get sucked out, like they'd all be able to feel whether it was there or not. It was tangible, able to be held, mangled. Eddie wanted to push it all out, all the stiffness of their movements, at the weight of something as simple as a legal agreement, but as complex as a fucking marriage, hung just beyond their reach. And they had to admit, recognize, that no matter how much they crawled and dragged themselves towards that ever-present goal, they may never actually reach it. 

Richie broke the silence. He always did. "But what if it  _ does? _ " He held Eddie's hand so tight he feared Richie would break it. "What if we get what we want, without...without having to bleed for it? What if that weird fucking turtle who,  _ obviously _ , is no fucking friend of ours, decides that all the people before us have done enough shit? That even  _ we  _ have bled enough?" He gestured to his own face. "I certainly fucking have!" 

Eddie pursed his lips and pressed them against the point where Richie's clavicle met his shoulder. "Maybe."

"No, it's gonna happen," Richie whispered, shutting his eyes and letting himself grieve the possibility for a minute, but only a minute. He flattened out his features from the creased, pained one Eddie thought would never leave, plastering on a half-baked attempt at the goofy smile Eddie loved so much. "It's gonna happen, and we're gonna do it, and then we're gonna watch Mike and Stan french each other underneath the chuppah--"

"Richie, this car is worth like fifteen bucks. I will  _ not  _ hesitate to crash it." Despite his words, Mike wiped at his eyes and laughed under his breath, making Richie beam forward at him in the dark, illuminated by the tail lights of the cars passing by. 

"Please, Bill would kill you."

Bill sat up, peeling his face off of the window to reveal a big smudge mark in the vague outline of his face. "I don't really care, but my mom will kill you if she has to pay any more for insurance, so try not to."

Richie looked over Eddie. "Since when have you been awake?"

"Since you were yelling,  _ fuckweed _ ."

Mike huffed out a laugh. "I'll try not to crash the car." He rolled to a stop at a red light, pulling the map further out of Stan's lap so he could look at it. "Ten minutes until we pull into this Super 8, which...is circled...and then...we're stopping at...Denny's after? Is that what the 'D' is? Oh, no, Richie just drew a dick on the map."

" _ No  _ , Eddie circled the motel, I circled that because there  _ is  _ a Denny's and I  _ want it _ , and then I just couldn't  _ not  _ draw a dick. It was right  _ there _ ."

Stan sat up and tugged the blanket off of him. "What's right there? Are we at the hotel?"

"Ten minutes," Mike responded, voice laced with fondness. "And calling it a hotel is...pretty bold."

"Hey Stan, wanna get gay married?" Richie asked, too fucking loud for almost all of them having just woken up. 

"Not to you," Stan muttered, not commenting further on it before shutting his eyes again. Eddie watched as Stan discreetly inched his hand off of his seat and to Mike's on the gear shift. Mike looked away from Stan, staring tensely ahead of him but smiling gently, pulling his hand off of the gear shift and letting Stan drag it to rest next to him, just holding it while he drove.

Eddie looked over to Richie, who he assumed must not have noticed, only to see Richie staring openly at them, a simple sense of peace sweeping over him. Richie sighed and leaned back on Eddie, letting his eyes shut until they got to the motel. 

"Love you," Richie breathed, so quiet Eddie could barely hear it. 

"Shh, there's people trying to sleep in here, asshole" Eddie told him, darting his neck back so he could kiss Richie's cheek. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title, while pretty generic, is from white wedding by billy idol
> 
> a shorter chapter for today!! I hope you enjoyed regardless and feel free to come talk to me on tumblr @sunflowersocialist !!


	9. i've been meaning to tell you, i've got this feelin' that won't subside

The coldest California winter could beat out the warmest spring in Maine, a cool breeze streaking through the air under the dark cover of night above them. The large screen in front of them showed a sweeping tour of the Nostromo, while Eddie leaned back onto their picnic blanket and Beverly handed out snacks. Richie was watching the screen wide-eyed, like he always did when they watched Alien, a top ten Loser favorite, head resting on Eddie's thigh while the rest of his body curled up between Eddie's legs.

The fifteenth anniversary of the Alien movie wasn't, like, a top holiday in Eddie's mind, but he did get excited about the outdoor screening they were holding for it on a quad Eddie often passed when he ran. He loved the movies, they all  _ did _ , but also sitting on a blanket with all of his friends and the love of his life while drenched in bug spray eating junk food for two hours somewhere that didn't drop to negative forty thousand degrees once the sun fell down was exciting in its own right. 

"I think I'd go straight for Sigourney Weaver," Richie mumbled as he rolled onto his back so he could look at Eddie, his glasses crooked on his nose from leaning them against Eddie's leg. He was going to fall asleep there, Eddie  _ knew _ , but he couldn't find it in him to warn him, the deep well of emotion he had overflowing while he looked down at him. 

"Fuck off," Eddie said, shaking his leg to jostle Richie so he'd laugh and turn around. Richie did,  _ finally  _ listening to Eddie for once in his life and turning back to watch the movie. "She'd never put up with your bullshit."

"What about Sigourney Weaver?" Bev asked, popping up over Eddie's shoulder and dropping a blanket in his lap. Richie yelped at the blanket hitting his face. "I  _ love  _ Sigourney Weaver."

"We  _ know _ ," Mike groaned, his face in his hands. "God, if I have to hear about your sexually charged Sigourney Weaver fantasies one more  _ time _ , I swear I'll lose it. Beverly, I  _ swear _ ." 

Eddie turned to watch Beverly shove Mike, as she snatched the jumbo bag of potato chips from his hands and ripped them open. Mike frowned and tried to grab them back, which resulted in a slap fight Eddie turned from so he wouldn't have to testify in their trial when they got arrested for disturbing the peace. 

"I'm so fucking cold," Richie shuddered miserably, moving again so he leaned against Eddie's chest, his long legs stretching out past Eddie's shoes. He unfolded the blanket Bev gave them and covered them with it, wringing his hands together in an attempt to warm them. 

"Because you have stick fingers and no body fat."

"You normally don't mind my fingers," Richie whispered, leaning back and kissing behind Eddie's ear. 

Eddie clenched his jaw and tried to stop himself from mauling the man in front of him. The feeling was fleeting, however, as Richie curled further into his own sweatshirt and then back into Eddie. It wasn't how they usually sat, but Eddie didn't mind it, wrapping his arms around Richie's waist, over his hands in an attempt to give him feeling back.

In all honesty, Eddie could have lived without tonight, and been entirely fine. This wasn't the hottest event of the season that Eddie would die if he missed, but ever since he kissed Richie in the middle of their hometown, all of Eddie's extra focus was on Richie, Richie, Richie.

They'd escaped Derry and come to California, all to be who they always were, without consequence. Now, they'd shown the entire town they ran from exactly  _ why  _ they ran, and Eddie felt like a weight had been lifted from his chest, one he didn't even feel in the first place. He could definitely have died with the smug knowledge that they won in the end, and been happy with that. But the reality of it was just as satisfying, a growing sense of victory encasing his entire body like a vice.

Richie didn't seem to care about this change, but Eddie knew he recognized it, and that made it better somehow, lighter. Just because they couldn't be themselves in Derry, didn't mean they were too afraid, didn't mean they only left because they were too weak to stand up for themselves. They'd been beaten to near death, not just because they were gay, but because they were loud, stubborn assholes, all too willing to defend themselves, with a monopoly on having the last word. Derry had hurt them, almost prevented them from escaping at all, but they  _ did _ , and they were still them. Even in Derry, where they had to try not to be, they were still them. 

Eddie looked at everyone around him, heart speeding up in his chest as he noticed groups of friends around them, couples, two guys from Stan and Mike's building who he thought were enemies absolutely making out on their frayed picnic blanket. Eddie smiled at them, feeling validated in his own inner monologue for a minute. From going to making out in Richie's truck in the drive-in to actually being able to hold Richie as his fucking boyfriend in the middle of a public space, made Eddie almost delirious with happiness. He had to stop himself from laughing from disbelief. He did it.  _ They  _ did it. 

Richie wriggled in his arms and turned back to Eddie. "Are you even watching the movie?"

Eddie scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Like I  _ could  _ with your fat head in the way."

\---

Beverly's birthday never usually came with much fanfare. It was an esteemed Loser tradition to get really high, eat their own weight in food, where the main common ingredient was corn syrup and carcinogens, and an ice cream cake Eddie bought, always using the coupons from the newspaper that his mom didn't want. This year, though, was the first birthday Beverly had in California, and she said she wanted to go to dinner at what might be the least-fancy place they could go, and then all go to someone's dorm to sleep. Probably getting super fucking high somewhere in there. Eddie and Richie cleaned their dorm specifically for this, because whenever anyone said 'someone's' dorm, it meant theirs, because Eddie was right about their dorm being the nicest one everyone liked to sleep in, and Eddie would be mortified if he was caught being anything other than a fantastic host. 

Being in Ben and Bill's dorm building was so fucking weird compared to being in his own, Eddie thought, as he walked down the hallway of a building identical to theirs, but inverted. Where Eddie and Richie had a common room, they had the bathrooms, and vice versa. It was like walking through a hall of mirrors. He squinted a poster for a Christmas party...in February? As Richie and him pulled each other down the hallway, with Mike and Stan walking like normal people behind them, their joint gift for Bev's birthday in one of Stan's hands, his other held Mike's gently between them.

Eddie smiled at the easy intimacy between them, ignoring the growing concern that he was actually becoming obsessed with Stan and Mike's relationship, as he dragged Richie away from an 'herbal meditation gathering' poster that Eddie guessed just meant either weed or shrooms.

Richie yelped and clutched his present, a weird book about threesomes the he made Eddie pay for, because it pushed them over the thirty dollar threshold that would get them a discount, even if Eddie would have been  _ fine  _ paying the fifteen percent and not having the cashier lady try to recover her shock when she saw that cover amidst several books about child psychology and a book about the Vietnam War. 

Eddie got Beverly one of those artsy drawing pencil sets, with all the different firmness levels with colored pencils and those weird erasers he always saw her using, that were somehow better than normal erasers, but she never explained why. Originally, him and Richie planned to go buy a gift together, but then Richie got that idea, and Eddie refused to even  _ imply  _ that he didn't hate the idea, even if he thought it was funny. It was the sort of boldness that only came across as funny if it was Richie. He also read the whole book, which was mostly. Pictures. (' _ Illustrations _ , Edward.  _ Diagrams _ . For demonstrative purposes.' 'I'll show  _ you  _ demonstrative purposes.') And wrote notes, just to be an asshole, then wrapped it in the worst fucking way possible, haphazard edges sticking awkwardly out of corners and not cutting enough paper the book required, taping shut the 'Happy Anniversary!' paper and declaring it finished. 

Richie stopped in front of their door, rummaging through his pockets for his keys while Stan and Mike were just catching up to them. Eddie's eyes widened as he heard someone groan from inside the room, followed by Ben laughing. Richie shook his keys out of his pocket and Eddie held his wrist to stop him. 

"Why did you--" Richie choked on his own tongue when someone made a  _ noise _ , and Eddie had to stop himself from literally sprinting in the other direction. "Oh my god."

As cool as they all were with whatever the three of them were doing, this was not something Eddie ever,  _ ever  _ wanted to know about, and would probably offer up half of his life savings just to forget he ever heard it. It was...nice, though? To know that they were doing well, and the lack of someone coming to Eddie for advice, or running crying to someone's dorm, made Eddie happy for his friends. Though, his friends could literally pick any time to be happy with each other, other than the exact time they were supposed to be picked up by the rest of them.

"Come  _ on _ ," Beverly muttered, audible through the door. "Before everyone else gets here."

"Too late for that, Bevvy!" Richie yelled, knocking hard on the door. It was like he had a program in his brain for the worst possible thing someone could do in any given moment, and then chose that every single time.

"Richie!" Stan hissed. "Oh my god, I'm going to kill you."

He ignored him. "Open up or you get nothing!"

Eddie let go of Richie's hand so he could smack both of his over his eyes. "I hate you so much."

"Shit!" Beverly cursed, followed by clambering and the quiet bickering of all three of them, trying to reclaim composure...or dignity...or something. Pants, Eddie hoped.

Bev pulled open the door to look at Richie while Bill slammed the nightstand drawer shut and Ben tried to...look...casual? He looked like a dumbass, leaning against Audra's desk with a forced-nonchalant shrug that made him look constipated. "Hello."

Richie curled in both of his lips and nodded. "Yeah, hey, hi! Question regarding tonight--"

Beverly shook her head. "No, you can't join."

"Fuck," Richie said. "That was the only present I had for you, then." Eddie rolled his eyes at the goofy smiles they gave each other, as long term members of the Peanut Gallery Union. "Do you still wanna do birthday shit, or do you wanna stay here and...do Bill and Ben?"

Eddie looked at him. "We're getting a divorce."

"You wish!"

"...Do I still get the presents?" Beverly asked, smiling when Richie did a court jester bow and offered up his gift, which she immediately ripped open, bursting into laughter so suddenly she almost spit in Richie's face. Richie beamed at her, all his teeth showing in a way that made Eddie feel like a preteen asshole at how much he loved him. He steeled his expression to hand over his gift, which Beverly took absentmindedly, leafing through the pages of Richie's book.

"This is from me and only me. Richie had nothing to do with this." Eddie smiled at her as Beverly pushed the tissue paper over to see the inside of the bag before walking down the hall with Richie as they waited for Stan and Mike to catch up. 

Eddie sighed as Richie slid his hand into Eddie's, tangling their hands together as they stopped in the lounge, Richie leaning on the back of an ugly green couch. Eddie stood in front of him, nudging his one leg over so he could wedge himself in the middle and wrapping his arm around his waist and sneaking his hand up the back of his shirt. 

"Wanna go to the dining hall? 'S not a birthday dinner anymore, so we don't have to spend money. Even if you are loaded," Eddie joked, referencing the weirdly large amount of tips Richie got every night. 

Eddie had been to the bar Richie worked at, and every time, it was sparsely populated by people who took the namesake literally. Apparently, though, there was a late night crowd that rushed in halfway through Richie's shift, and Richie was the quirky college kid who somehow passed off the illusion of being charming, so the money flowed in. Eddie wanted to try and argue, but Beverly backed up the story, and both of them are so terrible at jokes when they try to tell them together, just because their faces are so telling, that Eddie had no other choice but to believe them, because he refused to be there past midnight to find out for himself. 

Richie chuckled. "Yeah, but I want the one with mozzarella sticks. The good ones, not the ones that are set out when they're still, like, half frozen and hard and shit."

"They all have a salad bar, so I really don't care," Eddie agreed, squeezing Richie when the latter leaned down and kissed him. 

Stan and Mike  _ finally  _ joined them, no longer holding hands. Stan's arms were crossed over his chest, frowning and huffy in a way that meant he was annoyed, at either Richie's lack of shame or Bill, Ben, and Beverly's, but he didn't really care deep down. Principles were kind of his thing. Knowing Richie as long as he did, it was an expression Eddie saw often. 

Ignoring this, and focusing instead on his  _ burning  _ stomach sending him messages he hadn't acknowledged since lunch. "You guys wanna go to the dining hall?"

Stan dropped his arms. "Which one?"

"Hot mozzarella stick dining hall," Richie answered, pulling Eddie's hand out of the back of his shirt to hold it and walk down the hall to the elevators (because Bill and Ben had  _ elevators  _ ).

Mike groaned and clasped his hands together as they all pushed into the elevator at the same time. "Thank you god." 

\---

All four of them had gone back to Eddie and Richie's dorm after eating, with Ben, Beverly, and Ben joining them later on, calm and already on their way to sleep, all smelling like the same shampoo. Thankfully they gave no explanation into whatever happened before, because Eddie would have prefered death, flopping onto various places in his and Richie's room, talking aimlessly until all conversation fizzled out and they just sat in silence, enjoying one another's company too much to let any one of them interrupt the fatigued and content silence that blanketed the room. 

Mike had fallen asleep first, leaning against Richie's headboard with his legs laid across Stan's lap, his hands falling uselessly onto the bed on either side of him, while Stan held his ankle and followed him into sleep soon after. Ben sat next to them, now wide awake and slamming his thumbs into the buttons on Richie's Game Boy. Bill was fucking around with a Rubik's Cube while Beverly flipped through old pictures, just finding meaningless shit to do with their time until they succumbed to their own tiredness. Eddie flipped through the stupid fucking textbook he had to buy for his Statistics in Psychology class, trying to read the next unit so he could get, at least, a little bit ahead of what they were starting next week, while him and Richie top and tailed in their own bed. He looked up from his books to Richie's Elmo socks, which said nothing.

Sometimes, Eddie wondered if what he felt with Richie was the way the rest of them felt with each other. They were all so similar, but so different, with one huge central thing tying the seven of them together forever, Eddie wanted to see how that translated into each of their relationships. 

With him and Richie, there was almost never a quiet moment. Even when they were silent, there was this buzzing energy that passed through Eddie, like nothing could go wrong in that moment, a tangible feeling that he could reach out and grab if he wanted. They were loud, obnoxious, migraine inducing assholes, and Eddie adored it. He would hate it if Richie didn't call him on his shit, make him open up his steel trap stubborn heart and actually tell him shit, and he would never ask for a person he couldn't do the same for. It was like push and pull except both of them were constantly pushing and pulling at the same time, without ever breaking. If Eddie wasn't a whole person on his own, then Richie would be his other half. His  _ soulmate _ , or whatever Eddie called him when he was or was  _ not  _ intoxicated. 

With Mike and Stan, Eddie imagined there were long spans of silence. Not because of boredom, but because they don't need to talk to communicate with one another. Stan was meticulous in everything he did, had a compulsive need to have everything in order, and Mike was a person who had to have everything sorted one way or another. They had different interests, but their shared interests were also vast, which most likely led to hours long, ever-interesting conversations that Eddie imagined stumbled long into the night, even if they both went to sleep at, like, ten. Quiet mornings and mutual understanding concerning the magnitude of their feelings for one another. When Eddie pictured them, he saw neutral colors and hordes of anthology books organized by Dewey Decimal number, because Mike was trying to learn it. If you  _ could  _ organize it by the Dewey Decimal system, Eddie actually knew nothing about it. They were the green tea of romance, in Eddie's mind. Eddie wouldn't want it for himself, but he understood why it was so nice. 

Ben, Beverly, and Bill were a whole other thing Eddie couldn't even begin to figure out. They were, in some ways, fumbling teenagers trying to find solid ground in an ocean of new shit, but also they acted like they were married for a good fifteen years. Eddie didn't mind it, but he worried. Like, if him and Richie broke up--which he didn't even think about often because it was never going to happen, they were too deep in one another's history to just drop it-- Eddie would probably have to drop everything and move cross country to Florida, join whatever colleges they had out there, and then get eaten by an alligator on his first day. Mike and Stan, on the other hand, would part ways kindly and gently, allowing one another the chance to move on in their own way and probably becoming better friends by the end of it. They would break up poetically, and all of them would be stepping on eggshells to avoid talking about it until Mike or Stan snapped and told them it was fine. Eddie hated to think about that, too. 

Ben, Beverly, and Bill had stumbled into their relationship so suddenly Eddie couldn't even grasp the concept of it, and it had been over a month since they got together. None of them had ever mentioned talking about it to one another, or if they were a throuple or  _ whatever  _ it was called. In some ways, Eddie felt like a conservative old man not understanding new trends, but none of them actually wanted to clear up any confusion they had, and so Eddie had a sort of fixation on them since they got together, trying to study their body language or whatever to figure out the seriousness of their relationship. So far, he had nothing. He was so scared of the way they clashed together, so quickly and unexpected, that they would fall apart in just the same way, and their group would be changed forever.

Richie, who had taken to scribbling half coherent ramblings into the notebook Eddie got him for Christmas, slapped it shut so he could sit up next to him. He contorted his body in a way Eddie couldn't even fucking comprehend, one of his arms on either side of Eddie's hips so he was hovering above him. Eddie shut his book, knowing whatever Richie was about to say was gonna set him off track and make studying impossible. He set the hideous thing on the table, more than happy to leave it for the night.

"Eddie…" Richie mumbled, touching their foreheads together. "It's past midnight."

"No shit," Eddie said. "We both have an eight a.m. tomorrow, you know."

Richie smiled at him. "I know. I have work, too, but that's not til one. I just wanted to _ask_ , since it **_is_** now, technically, Valentine's Day--"

"Oh my god."

"Do you wanna go on a date with me?" He widened his eyes and batted his lashes. Eddie scrunched his nose at it, hating nothing more than Richie's distorted features as he tried to look cute. He didn't have to try to look cute. Eddie rolled his eyes. 

"No, I don't." He pulled Richie an inch closer by the neck of his shirt to kiss him, ignoring Beverly's gagging as Richie leaned down so they were pressed together. Eddie pulled away, letting himself smile at Richie in a way he usually didn't when their friends were around. "When do you wanna go?"

Richie smiled, which was basically just him showing off all his teeth more than him smiling, sitting back on the bed. "Depends on  _ where  _ we go."

"My Girl 2 came out," Ben mumbled, smashing his hands down onto the buttons before sighing dramatically and dropping the GameBoy altogether. "We could all go see that, do what we want later?"

Mike rolled his head to face Ben, a muddled grumble rolling out of his mouth. "Let's do that." It barely made its way out, muddled with sleep, but waking up at the mere mention of one of his favorite movies. "I like that." He hummed when Stan slid out from under him so they could lay next to each other. "That too."

"I'm down," Richie said smoothly. "We can just go once I get off."

Eddie laughed under his breath. "If you don't get off before that."

"Oh? Got something in mind?"

"St _ op! _ " Beverly groaned, covering her eyes with the pictures. "We have a vomit rule for a  _ reason! _ "

Richie pulled a pillow from behind Eddie's head and threw it at her. "You're in our room! Go home if you don't wanna watch."

"Uh, go home if you  _ do  _ want to watch. We charge admission. And none of you paid." Eddie smiled when Richie turned back to him and kissed him, slow, like he wanted Eddie to study his movements and repeat them back to him. So he did, mirroring him, only breaking away to laugh against Richie's mouth when he heard Beverly slip out of the room along with Ben and Bill. Stan and Mike, it seemed, were staying the night, as they were still lying dead asleep on Richie's bed. 

"Guess we're stuck with our dicks  _ out  _ of our hands for tonight, as long as we have Stanny and Clyde over there, so...I'm gonna go turn off the lights." Richie groaned as he stood up and went over, ankles doing the weird cracking thing they always did when he walked around at night. Eddie waited, taking his shirt off and kicking his jeans down his legs as Richie made his way over, dropping his own clothes as he walked and tossing them in the hamper. 

Eddie yelped as Richie jumped on top of him, a common occurrence in their relationship that still never failed to knock the wind out of him. Richie didn't seem to mind the rupture in Eddie's spleen, though, almost immediately falling asleep once they'd gotten under the covers. Eddie smiled at Richie's blank expression, kissing the side of his face before shutting his eyes and falling asleep next to him. 

\---

The walk back from class was always one Eddie liked, even without Bill to keep him company. Even in February it felt like spring in Maine, the wide cement pavements lined with shrubs, streets stretching out for miles past Eddie's line of vision, the feeling of a world so open to him that Derry could fall away into nothing. Even if there was a smog problem in California, Eddie didn't feel it there, never had the phantom limb sensation of his inhaler, never felt afraid that his next breath would be the last one he'd get.

Eddie shoved his hand inside his jacket pocket, wrapping his fingers around his keys, the other keeping his bag hanging off one shoulder. He wished he could skip the, albeit pleasant, walk home and just be there, sleeping off the ten minutes he lost the night before when the three B's (which Richie now called the 'B cube') overstayed their welcome and Mike and Stan had simply overslept theirs. Eddie didn't actually mind, but his body was trying to actively kill him for not getting his total eight hours. He wanted to sleep now so he would be awake when Richie came home from his stats class, not to do anything, just to actually be able to see him before he spent six hours in the grimiest pub Eddie had ever been in. 

"It's actually kind of cool, y'know, to find out how film influences, like, culture, and then history as an extension of that," Bill said, staring ahead of them as they walked across the quad. Eddie nodded along, knowing he would have to leave Bill once they got to the corner, since Bill's film class was in the opposite direction of their dorm. 

"Yeah, I get that. It's like--" Eddie stopped dead in his tracks, his general sweeping gaze of the quad landing on Audra, sitting on a bench, holding hands tightly with a girl Eddie has never met before. He tripped on his own shoes when he saw the other girl lean in to kiss Audra, Bill not even moving to help him because he was too busy staring at them too. Luckily Eddie managed to catch himself before cracking his head open on the pavement.

"Holy shit," Eddie breathed, straightening out his clothes. "Are you okay?"

"I feel like I should be asking you that," Bill joked, nudging Eddie as they kept walking. Bill didn't say anything, but Eddie could tell that his attention wasn't all on their thrilling conversation of whatever the fuck they were talking about before. 

Eddie laughed awkwardly, pushing his bag further onto his shoulder. "So...you and Bev? And Ben? How's...how's that going?"

"Good!" Bill answered, thankful for the out. "Well, as good as it can be, I guess. We haven't really talked about it--Actually we made it a point to not talk about it until everything was calmed down and less hectic. 'Cause we kind of didn't...actually bring up talking about it until we got back from break. Then actual classes started and we just...haven't had the time, but it's good for now. Just letting it be."

Eddie shrugged. "That makes sense. It's weird, though, at how  _ un _ surprised I am. Like, I never  _ guessed  _ it would happen, but I imagine some part of me always  _ knew  _ it would happen?" He looked over to see Bill nodded, and continued, "Like, that some of us would end up blurring the lines between, either, I don't know, monogamy? Or  _ something?  _ I can't even say friendship because we're all in this web of relationships with each other, but I just--It doesn't shock me. Well, when Beverly and Ben told us at first, sure. It shocked me then. But now I'm like  _ whatever _ . This might as well happen--"

"You're spiraling, buddy," Bill told him, stopping at the corner where he knew Eddie would have to leave him. "But thanks. It helps knowing everyone doesn't just think we're weird. Makes not knowing every aspect of what's going on feel...a little less like drowning."

"No problem. Like I said, wasn't surprised." He turned toward the direction of his dorm. "See you later tonight. Love you!"

"Love you!" Bill called, turning down the street to get to his class.

Eddie smiled to himself as they parted ways, mulling over their conversation as he neared the brick and tan cubicle looking monolith that was their building. B-cubed did make sense, when he thought about it. They were all like weird, artistic types, with Ben being the grounding force of what made him and Beverly make sense in the first place. Beverly was just like Richie, zero-to-sixty kind of energy, like a shot of caffeine on speed, and Ben was there as not only a boyfriend, but also the number one encouragement to that chaos and a lighthouse Beverly could always go home to. Bill was always the perfect combination of the two of them, which made their relationship fit together like little puzzle pieces.

And Eddie meant what he said. They were all one long chain of assholes, connected hip to hip to hip to hip to hip to hip to hip. It would almost surprise him if they never clipped through the hip and just...got into each other's pants. Not that Eddie would, or that  _ Richie  _ would, but--Oh. 

He never actually thought about it before that. 

In his heart, he didn't have to really think about it like that, he already knew the answer. Richie, despite claiming he was the 'freakiest motherfucker on this side of the planet', was also a ginormous sap with the same dumb territorial bullshit Eddie had, even if he was less willing to show it. On one hand, it was funny when people tried to flirt with one of them while not realizing they weren't available, but on the other, Eddie felt like him and Richie were so obnoxiously obsessed with each other, it was almost offensive when other people didn't see it. 

Eddie didn't mind it as much as he might have before, though. Richie was his, wore Eddie's ring around his neck every day to prove it, and Eddie did the same. Nobody was going to touch him unless Eddie let them, and he probably wasn't going to let someone any time soon. He felt like he barely got to touch Richie enough himself, like he hadn't committed the map of him to memory. He'd known him for thirteen years, and he still found out something new every day. Even if it was another Loser, which Eddie  _ strongly  _ doubted, it wouldn't be the same. It had always been him and Richie, and it always would be. 

Still, it didn't mean he couldn't bring it up. For dramatic effect. 

He pulled open the door to his building and dropped the topic from his head. All questions he had for Richie could be asked when he got home,  _ after  _ he woke up from the nap he was about to take. 

\---

Richie came home right when Eddie finished towel drying his hair. He'd only manage to fall asleep for a good forty minutes before his body decided he  _ needed  _ to be awake, and when he actually  _ did  _ get up, he was drenched in the thick fog of sleeping in the middle of the day that made time move like jelly. He had a shit ton of homework to do, but he took a shower specifically so he wouldn't have to do that, and also so he wouldn't smell like sleep sweat and exhaustion later that night.

"Hey," Richie greeted, dropping a cardboard drink holder on his desk. Eddie's entire face brightened at the mango smoothie he saw waiting for him, as Richie dropped his bag by his bed and kicked off his socks and shoes in one go. 

Honestly, Eddie didn't know what was wrong with him today. Sure, yeah, it was Valentine's Day, and, up until this point, he'd spent none of these with someone he loved, with  _ Richie _ , but it felt like that didn't require the hair trigger waves of  _ want  _ Eddie had for him in that minute. Eddie licked over the backs of his teeth as Richie shoved his jeans down his hips, stepping into his pajama pants he left on the floor before they both left for class this morning. 

Richie caught his eye and slowed down in tying the bow on the waistband, a small detail he always fixated on, which Eddie found insanely endearing. "You okay? You're kind of...putting me under surveillance here...just...blankly staring at me right now."

Eddie cleared his throat and sat up straight. "Yeah, sorry. You're just...I'm really into you right now. Like, ins _a_ _ nely  _ into you right now."

"Oh?" Richie laughed, eyebrows shooting up like he was surprised at how much Eddie wanted him. He turned away from Eddie to grab both smoothies out of the holder and hand one to him. "You got a little heart day horniness? Little Valentine's Day Viagra?"

Eddie gagged. "The last one made me actually impotent." He reached out to grab the cup from him and pushed himself up onto their bed. "I'm never going to have an orgasm again. I hope you're happy."

Richie pulled his desk chair up to the bed, sitting down in front of Eddie like they were going to the sacrament of Penance. "I really am." His smile took up half of his face, all amusement and emotion Eddie didn't have time for, because he hadn't rushed to put on clothes for a  _ reason  _ and Richie had work in an hour. "Last year you got mad at me for asking you to be my valentine 'as a joke'," he recalled, making air quotes with his hand. 

"Yeah, 'cause I thought you were saying, like, 'oh, me dating Eddie, that's disgusting' and I was--"

"Heartbroken."

"Def _e_ _ nsive _ ," Eddie corrected.

He drank his smoothie so quickly it gave him a brain freeze, before putting the remaining half on the table. He jumped down from the bed to sit in Richie's lap, his towel bunched up around his hips as Richie made a surprised noise, resting his hands on Eddie's waist. Goosebumps broke out over his skin at the touch, running his hands across Richie's three mile wide shoulders. He felt ravenous, drinking in Richie's face and his neck and his shoulders, his hair that started to grow again, curling at his nape. Richie didn't say anything, staring up at Eddie like he was a fucking god, long eyelashes blinking slow. Eddie brushed across Richie's cheekbones before leaning down to kiss him. 

Richie gasped into Eddie's mouth when Eddie curled his fingers in Richie's hair and tugged lightly, not enough to even hurt, just to tease him, remind him where the fuck they were. Eddie took the opportunity Richie provided, deepening the kiss like the meaning of life was being hidden somewhere in his mouth. Eddie shivered as Richie's hands smoothed over his back, moving them back to pull Eddie in by the knees so all of his weight was on Richie. Eddie smiled against Richie's mouth, leaning away to pull Richie's shirt over his head. 

"Are you  _ okay? _ " Richie asked, his breath shallow and his face flushed. "You're like...rabid, right now."

"I  _ told  _ you, I'm really into you right now. And you have work in an hour. But mostly because you're just…" Eddie's eyes roamed Richie's bare chest, pinching his own bottom lip with his teeth. "Yeah."

"You have such a way with words," Richie said sarcastically. "I get that you like me, Eds, but usually when you jump me there's a  _ reason _ . We could've done this after work. You have, like, self control, or whatever."

"Not with you," Eddie whispered honestly. "I was talking to Bill earlier--"

"Is this related somehow?"

"Maybe? Just--Listen. For  _ once _ ." He relaxed on top of Richie, remembering he was only wearing a bunched up towel that made him look like a slightly taller infant, but he ignored it. "I was coming home from class, right? We got out early cause the prof had an appointment, and I saw Bill walking to his class, so we went the long way home so we could walk together--"

"You're so cute," Richie told him, trying to hide his own smile because this was a serious conversation, even if it wasn't. Eddie scowled at him, but it just made him smile more. 

"I hate you. Like, actually."

Richie ignored him as his own thoughts rambled in his head. Pausing on one, he quirked his eyebrows. "You're like this 'cause of Bill? What, you wanna get a third person in on this, too?"

Eddie squinted at him, trying to see if Richie was scanning his brain or something before he spoke (If he was, he was kind of bad at it, but it was fine), or if Eddie was not the only person that, now, whenever they thought of Bill the first thing that came up was 'he's really dating Ben and Beverly'. Richie swallowed at his silence, pulling away from Eddie both physically and mentally, looking awkward as hell with Eddie still sitting naked in his lap. 

"Uh, I don't--I was kidding," Richie blurted out. "Is that--? Would you--"

"No, asshole!" Eddie scolded. "I was  _ talking  _ about his...new relationship...with Ben and Beverly, and I was saying how I wasn't  _ totally  _ surprised that the, like, lines of monogamy would...  _ blur _ , at some point, in our friend group. And then I was like, is that something...Richie...thinks about? That  _ you  _ think about? And, like..." His face was burning the more he spoke, but Richie was just watching him with wide eyes, physically restraining himself from bouncing his leg when Eddie was on top of him, playing with the corner of Eddie's towel as a replacement so he could actually absorb what he was saying. 

"Go on," Richie urged, squeezing his arm around Eddie's waist. "I'm listening."

"It wasn't, like, an insecurity thing or anything, I wasn't panicking that you secretly  _ lusted  _ after people that weren't me, but we're just...all very  _ close _ . And sexual...fluidity...is a thing, I know that, and I know I didn't want to fuck anybody else--" His eyes widened as the low, grumbling noise Richie made in his throat interrupted him. Eddie swallowed, sitting down so far his knees ached at the influx of weight so he could feel Richie through the fabric of his towel. "Shit."

Richie's eyes were half lidded, pupils blown to the size of dinner plates. Eddie's breath stuttered, swallowing again as Richie licked his lips. 

"I'm not fucking anybody else," Richie breathed, pulling Eddie flush against him so he could stand up, Eddie yelping and wrapping his legs around Richie's hips before Richie laid him on their bed sideways. "Ever."

Eddie pushed himself up against the wall and over so they were longways, Richie crawling to hover over him with a desperate sense of urgency, his necklace falling out of his shirt. Eddie felt like he was in a haze, Richie's ring dangling in front of his face as the latter leaned down to kiss him, Eddie going to meet the distance, both of his hands on Richie's jaw. Richie groaned as Eddie pressed his knees into the sides of Richie's hips to try and get him to take his jeans off, while also pulling him closer so he wouldn't pull away. He wanted him to take his clothes off, but he also...didn't want him to get too far away. He was in that kind of mood.

Richie ignored his movements and kept his jeans on, reaching down to untuck the towel around Eddie's waist and pull it out from under him. Eddie swallowed hard, panting against Richie's mouth at being entirely naked, when Richie was fully clothed. He'd lost the rhythm of what they were doing before, with Bill not exactly being the hottest thing to talk about, but he was back into it, his cock hardening so fast it  _ ached _ . 

Richie bowed his head, nipping at Eddie's jaw, hovering carefully above Eddie to keep his jeans away from Eddie's dick, which Eddie was grateful for. He whined, grabbing Richie's hair and pulling him back to kiss him. Richie groaned, pressing further into the kiss to punctuate a sentence he didn't say and then pulling away. He looked at Eddie for a moment, letting his ring, just,  _ hang  _ in his face. Eddie stared at him, leaning up minutely to touch the flat of his tongue to the bottom of the ring, curling it to the bottom of his front teeth to tug on the ring. Richie sighed like Eddie was killing him, kneeling to undo his belt, falling back to pull his jeans off in what was, maybe, the most unattractive way to remove clothing Eddie had ever seen, but it was  _ Richie _ , so it just made Eddie want him  _ more _ .

He was down to his boxers when he came back up to kiss Eddie, stopping just to look at his ring hovering inches from Eddie's mouth. Eddie was going cross eyed just watching the ring, mouth hung open. He needed Richie inside him  _ yesterday _ , but he waited the long, agonizing handful of seconds watching Richie watch the ring.

"Why do you like that so much?" Richie whispered. The overhead light made Richie's red ears look orange. He bit at the scab on his lip while Eddie scrambled to piece together his thoughts.

Eddie blinked, swallowing down all the things that kept him from saying it before. "When it hangs in my face like that it makes me feel like I own you."

Richie dropped down to his elbows. " _S_ _ hit _ , actually?" 

"It makes me feel...possessive...of you. Like a fucking collar," Eddie admitted, covering his hands with his face. God, he was so--

"Oh my god." Richie pushed his weight onto his knees so he could pull Eddie's hands away from his face and kiss him again. " _ Eddie _ ."

"You  _ like  _ that?"

Richie rolled his eyes. "No, I  _ hate  _ the kid I've loved for fucking  _ years _ , that I thought I'd never even get to hold hands without being  _ murdered _ , tells me that something I wear every day, that  _ he  _ **gave me** , to symbolize the fact that he loves me, turns him on so much he wants to  _ dog walk  _ me. Yeah, that's not the hottest thing I've ever heard, at  _ all _ ."

"Ew, don't say I want to dog walk you." Eddie bit his lip. Richie could damn well think it, but he couldn't _say it_. Not if he wanted Eddie to live to see twenty. 

"Fine. Got anything else up that alley to talk about?" Richie mumbled, dragging his clothed dick against Eddie's and grinning when Eddie moaned. He laughed and kissed Eddie slowly, like he couldn't help himself, shifting their bodies so he didn't have to use only his arms to support himself, breaking the kiss to mouth at Eddie's shoulder, reaching one hand between them to wrap his hands around Eddie's cock. 

"Holy  _ fuck, _ " Eddie gasped, his entire body feeling like a wick attached to dynamite, like his whole body would implode. "I'm not--You  _ need  _ to fuck me before I lose my fucking mind, I  _ swear _ ."

Richie laughed, his breath tickling Eddie's neck. "You need to talk to me before I fuck you."

Eddie keened when Richie swiped his thumb over the head, biting his neck at the same time. " _ Richie _ ."

"Nope," Richie smiled, shifting his hips so Eddie could feel Richie's bulge against his ass, which directly sabotaged any request of Richie's that required Eddie to form words. 

Richie switched hands on Eddie's dick, like it was no big deal, like the sudden fumbling of Richie's non-dominant hand didn't strike a match to Eddie, slowly burning away at his resolve. Richie reached into their nightstand, grabbing their bottle of lube from the drawer. Eddie struggled to remember how to breathe as Richie closed the door shut without getting a condom, knowing they'd only done that a few times before, knowing how fucking  _ insane  _ it drove him, and did it anyway. God, he _loved_ him, loved how Richie knew exactly what he liked without Eddie having to tell him every time. It meant something, made him feel something. Something beyond irrevocably fucking hot. 

"I want you to tell me--" Richie muttered in his ear, trying to talk, open the bottle of lube, and jerk Eddie off all at the same time, which Eddie was surprised he hadn't stumbled yet, " _ \--literally  _ everything you thought while you were talking to Bill, and you thought about me fucking someone else--"

"I never,  _ fuck _ , I never pictured you fucking someone else," Eddie told him, as Richie circled his entrance with his finger. "You're never  _ going  _ to fuck someone else." He turned his head to lick at the hinge of Richie's jaw, biting firmly down on his skin there, as Richie sunk his finger into him to the second knuckle. "M--More, give me another one."

"Eddie, I literally  _ just  _ got in here."

"I  _ know _ , asshole. I  _ like it _ ." He gasped quietly when Richie did as Eddie asked, inching inside him slowly with two fingers, avoiding his prostate because he was  _ evil _ . "Like it when you fuck me so hard I feel it later, like you did it on purpose, to remind me that nobody else is gonna fuck me that good. Our friends can fuck the shit out of each other--Stan and Mike can join B cube for all I fucking care, but you--Your dick, your stupid fucking heart, that's  _ mine _ ."

"Jesus Christ, Eddie," Richie breathed, scissoring his fingers inside Eddie before pressing gently against Eddie's prostate. He pushed himself back onto one arm so he could kiss Eddie, licking into his mouth. He was  _ covered  _ in sweat, probably from holding himself up for so long more than anything else, but Eddie was the same way, could feel his hair sticking to his forehead. He pushed Richie away to put both hands on his ribs, the sound of himself breathing deafening in his ears. 

"I wanna give you a hickey, like, really bad," Eddie said, dragging his hands up to Richie's neck. "High up, where everyone is gonna see it. So anyone who looks at you is gonna know I gave it to you." He whined as Richie sunk a third finger into him, precum dripping onto Eddie's stomach. "Fuck, fuck, fuck,  _ shit _ ." His voice shook as he tried to speak, Richie smiling into Eddie's open mouth. "You need to fuck me, like, right now. Before I  _ lose it _ ." His neck arched back onto the pillows. "Fuck! I  _ need  _ you." He squeezed around Richie's face to get his point across, hands shuddering with how lost he was in his own pleasure.

"Okay, okay, hold on." He let Eddie pull him back to kiss him, breaking away less than a second later so he could pull off his boxers and chuck them somewhere. Eddie watched through the space between their bodies as Richie flicked open the lube again, maneuvering himself so he could squeeze it out onto the same hand he was holding it with. 

Richie's eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he moved, his head once again at Eddie's neck. He could feel Richie's eyes flutter shut as he wrapped a lubed hand around himself, dropping into a deep, rumbling moan when Eddie attached his mouth to the soft skin under Richie's jaw and sucked, hard. 

Eddie felt like his mind was floating in a thick fog, and the only two constant things in it were him and Richie. Every breath he took was too warm, sticking in his throat and his lungs, tasted like sweet mint gum Richie chewed to pay attention in his English class and heat, like every emotion he had was pouring out of his mouth. His nerves were fragmented and standing at attention, his body shattered into a million pieces of one whole, one half of the melded being that he and Richie composed. It was a static existence pieced together by what little string of thought he could have. Richie was so fucking good at making him fall apart.

A bolt of arousal shot up his spine and came out of his mouth as a breathless moan as Richie sunk into him, slower than Eddie could take, and he knew it. They were both steeped in this moment, but also disconnected from it. Every atom in Eddie's body was in a different part of the universe, whining as Richie filled him up so much Eddie could feel it in his  _ throat _ . It almost felt like they were high, except the haziness that made sex less intense wasn't there, and the drawn out pleasure still was, scattered throughout himself.

"Ed _d_ _ ie _ ,"" Richie muttered, sliding deeper into him.

"How much more dick do you  _ have _ , Richie,  _ fuck _ ." It felt like he'd been doing this  _ forever _ , not that he was complaining, his words sticking to the backs of his teeth. 

Richie laughed and bottomed out, sharp hip bones flush with backs of Eddie's thighs. "You say that, like, every time we have sex."

Eddie huffed out a laugh, which built into both of them chortling into each other's shoulders. "Don't blame me for your huge fucking dick. Now fuck me before you get fired," he mumbled.

" _ Shit _ , I should call in sick."

"You're  _ not _ \--"

"Just so I could fuck you how you want it, fill you up for as long as you want me to," Richie said, pulling out a few inches before slamming back into him, biting down on Eddie's shoulder as Eddie shouted out and clenched around him. 

"Th _ at _ ," Eddie gasped, as Richie dug his hips into Eddie's ass, brushing his prostate just enough that it made Eddie's whole body ignite. "More of that." Eddie's jaw dropped as Richie pulled out and changed angles, not having the energy to try and keep a respectable volume, or monitor his own mouth at  _ all _ , while trying to keep up with whatever Eddie thought Richie was saying, while also nailing his prostate and trying to fuck him in a consistent rhythm with Eddie contributing nothing.

Gathering his thoughts as Richie fucked him so hard Eddie was slowly moving up the bed, Eddie pulled Richie's face to his, kissing him with all he fucking had left in him. Richie could barely kiss him back, gasping as Eddie's hands roamed across his chest and his sides as he clenched around him, hands roaming up between his shoulder blades and scratching down his back. Richie hissed and rolled his hips up, and Eddie fucking  _ screamed _ . 

Richie shushed him and covered Eddie's mouth instinctively,  _ audibly  _ sobbing out when Eddie leaned his neck back to pull Richie's fingers into his mouth. He was at least in his right mind enough to know this  _ wasn't  _ the hand Richie used to stretch him, which he thanked every higher being for, as he would have had to power wash his mouth for four years. He ran his tongue along Richie's fingertips, enjoying immensely how Richie's back bowed as he lost his balance.

"You're gonna fucking kill me," Richie mumbled. "You're so fucking tight it feels like you're trying to pop my dick like a balloon." He yelped as Eddie bit down on his knuckles, gagging Eddie when he shoved his fingers into the back of his throat in his attempt to remove them. Eddie jolted when Richie slammed into his prostate head-on, fully wailing in a way that would prevent him from talking to their neighbors for the next four years. 

"Richie, oh my god," Eddie cried around his fingers, which Richie pulled out of his mouth, saliva dripping on Eddie's bottom lip and chin. The heat in his stomach coiled tighter in his stomach. "'M so fucking close, pl _e_ _ ase _ ."

"Aw," Richie cooed, and Eddie let out an exaggerated sigh as Richie's smug little fuckface looked down at him. "Look who owns who now."

_ "Richard _ ."

"Call me Dick." Richie supported himself on one arm, fucking into Eddie so deep Eddie could feel it in his fucking throat, using his free hand to jerk Eddie off, slamming his hips into him until Eddie's back arched and he came, covering Richie's hand with it. He could feel himself tighten around Richie, turning his head again to kiss him, riding the descent of his orgasm into the fuzzy feeling of overstimulation until Richie lost his rhythm, going to pull out before Eddie crossed his legs around Richie's waist and kept him close. 

"Eds, I'm--"

"I want it," Eddie breathed, digging his knees into Richie's sides to emphasize his point. "I wanna feel it, feel you fill me--"

" _ Fuck _ ," Richie hissed as he came inside of Eddie, marking him up on the inside that time. Eddie groaned, Richie's cock having already stretched him out and filling him so much it felt like he couldn't take it all, and his come making it so much  _ more _ . Richie shuddered, thrusting his hips uselessly as he slumped against him. Eddie's dick gave a hopeless twitch. "Oh my god."

" _ Shit _ ," Eddie agreed, wincing when Richie eased out of him and collapsed next to him, as  _ next  _ to him as he could given the proximity of their bed, his cheeks down to his chest bright red. Eddie clenched around nothing, not willing to admit to anyone ever that he...actually liked how having Richie's come in him felt. It was fucking possessive, marking Eddie up as Richie's even inside of him, the filthy feeling of it dripping out of him and onto the sheets.

"I don't think I'm ever gonna get hard again," Richie said. "I wanna kiss you right now, but if you touch me I'll throw up."

"Same. Surprised you didn't already throw up considering half the shit we just said would probably trigger your vomit reflex that we're all so  _ fond  _ of." 

Richie swatted at his arm. "It's not polite to insult someone who just fucked you within an inch of your life." He sat up to get his glasses off of the bedside table, squinting at the alarm clock. "I still have five minutes left until I have to get up for work. Do you think I could shower?"

"Probably not, as much as I hate the thought of you at work for like seven hours with my bodily fluids on you." He inched over so Richie would join him in laying flat, then straddled his waist. "What  _ we  _ could do, though, is let me give you a hickey like I  _ wanted _ ."

Richie laughed, but didn't try to push Eddie off. "We're so fucking high school."

Eddie flicked him in the chest. "Considering we got together two  _ weeks  _ before graduation, because both of us were too fucking stupid to do it any earlier, I think it's safe to say we missed the high school boat." Without hearing another word, he leaned down and attached himself to Richie's neck, clenching around nothing again.

Richie sighed and let his eyes flutter shut, his hand coming up to cradle Eddie's head. "Fair."

\---

"I am clean!" Richie rejoiced as he burst through their door, his uniform shirt sticking to his skin. His hair was still dripping, which he knew Eddie  _ hated _ , and he had a Cookie Monster beach towel that looked like it had only barely survived the Normandy landings on D-Day wrapped around his waist. He had his shower shoes still on, which were ugly Adidas things he kept velcroed, like, forty sizes too large, his feet slipping all over like he was fucking ice skating. 

Eddie furrowed his eyebrows as Kirby plummeted to his death on the screen in front of him. "Did you keep your shirt on when you showered or something?" 

Richie raised his eyebrows, biting the inside of his cheek with all the amusement in the world as he pulled his soaking wet shirt off of his head. 

The purple and red marks Eddie left on him earlier clear as a fucking bell on him. Eddie noticed the one on his jaw, one right on the side of his neck that he left just so he'd be able to see them, and then the lighter ones under his collarbones and on his chest that Eddie gave him hurriedly before Richie was actually going to get fired if he was any later. Eddie would be embarrassed if the sight didn't actually make his heart pound. He considered continuing his work for a moment, before he remembered they had limited time before everyone else got here to go to the movies. 

" _ No _ , I didn't shower in my shirt, but I  _ did  _ have to put it on the second I was done, 'cause if I left the shower shirtless like this, people would ask me if I got fucking mugged." He looked in the mirror on the back of their door, hissing as he ran his fingers against them. "Are you a vampire or something?" He turned back to Eddie. "You lettin' other people suck your blood?"

Eddie rolled his eyes as he slid out of the bed, disappointed that the warmth from putting their sheets in the dryer had cooled. He fell back asleep after Richie left for work,  _ limping  _ into Richie's bed so he wouldn't have to sleep in their mess. He always thought it was, like, a myth that people wouldn't be able to walk after they had sex, but then Richie and his huge fucking dick proved him wrong, and Eddie couldn't figure out if he loved it or hated it. 

"Didn't we just have a whole conversation about not letting other people do anything to us?" He ran into Richie when he turned around so he could lean up and kiss him. "Why did we agree to go to this movie, again?"

Richie sighed and slipped his hands into Eddie's shorts, both of his hands splayed across his ass. "Because we're great friends who need to go outside, to prevent my dick from actually falling off." He dropped his head onto Eddie's shoulder, his nose digging into his shirt. "Which you are not helping by wearing your tease-shorts."

Eddie pinched Richie in the side, laughing as he writhed out of Eddie's arms. "They're not tease shorts! They're not short and you  _ know  _ it."

"We've been over this," Richie said, waving his hands wildly as he turned to his dresser and started picking clothes, seemingly, at random. "It's not the  shorts  on their _own_. " He gestured to Eddie's legs, craning his neck to see his ass. "That doesn't fucking help either."

"You're the worst," Eddie complained, pulling the shorts off so he could put on the clothes he'd set out for this. "Anyone at the bar see them?"

He could  _ feel  _ Richie's smile from where he was standing. "Are you kidding? I thought Beverly's eyes were gonna fall out of her head."

"...Good. I wasn't kidding when I said they should know who you belong to."

Richie blushed, like he didn't remember the events surrounding those hickeys, pushing his hair off of his forehead only to let it flop back down. "You're gonna fucking kill me."

\---

Eddie jumped back as the door opened again, stumbling backwards and jumping onto his bed so he could try and hide the fact that they, as per usual, got distracted by making out and plowed past the meeting time, making for a rushed separation as somebody unlocked their door. Eddie stared at Richie, whose bare torso was on display for whoever that was to see, his whole pattern of Eddie's work on display, as Beverly opened the door and extravagantly entered, Bill and Ben in tow. She had a really nice shirt on, not fancy or anything, just nice, and Eddie would've said something to her if he wasn't inhaling the sight of Richie like he was gonna forget what he looked like, once he paid attention to what was actually going on around them. 

"I thought Bev was kidding when she said you got fucked by an octopus," Bill mumbled, looking at Eddie's neck with abject horror, setting off a small bomb of pride in Eddie's chest, that he'd probably bring up once they got home again, but would ignore every instance of while their friends were here. 

"How are you three the ones that are on time?" Eddie asked. 

"They're not," Richie laughed. "They're just  _ super  _ late from yesterday still. I'd rather fuck an octopus than try and do a whole aquarium before the doors open."

"You  _ will  _ die by my hand," Beverly told him, opening the bottom drawer of their nightstand and pulling out the issue of Vogue they went in on together. "Anything good in here?"

Eddie waved his hand. "Nothing better than January."

"Gross."

Stan and Mike came in, five minutes early as always, but irritated that they were the last ones there, all of them setting off to go see a movie that Ben and Mike talked about the  _ entire  _ walk there, rearranging everybody in their seats once they got to the theater so that they could sit next to each other while also their respective significant others, with Ben having to settle for just sitting next to Bev, since she was in the middle and refused to budge.

"Wait, who's that kid?" Richie asked, jutting his chin to gesture to one of the main characters of the movie, who has been in a large number of scenes by this point. Richie should have known who this kid is, but he'd been talking for a large portion of the time they were there, about individual lines and costumes and...trees? At one point he started talking about trees. 

Eddie turned to him, blinking at Richie's wide eyes, struggling to see him in the darkness. "No idea."

As much as Richie had spent talking instead of watching, Eddie had also spent listening. He was in the theater for Ben and Mike, mostly, but he was also on a date. With Richie. A triple date, with seven people, which is not the normal number of people that go on a triple date, but mostly he was on a date with Richie. 

His heart beat steady but firm in his chest as Richie licked his lips and smiled, his top row of teeth gleaming off of the screen in front of them. He tried to convince himself it wasn't because it was Valentine's Day, that getting to  _ finally  _ partake in the cheesy cliche shit that he missed out on as a traumatized gay kid in high school, endlessly pining for his best friend, didn't make his soul leap out of his chest and into outer fucking space, but, God, it  _ did _ . Richie leaned over and kissed him, not even minding the gaggle of people behind them. Eddie decided not to mind, either. He'd done way worse.

Richie pulled away first, like he'd rationed out the amount of gross they were allowed to have until Stan threw up on Richie's jacket, which Eddie stole, and had to savor it. Eddie hated these moments sometimes, where he remembered they were actually in the sappy-as-shit relationship that they were in. It felt too self aware. Too meta.

"You wanna go to the ninety-nine cent store after this, buy the sad, divorcee candy, then go home and eat till we feel sick?" Richie scanned over his face. "Then fuck until we throw up."

Stan leaned over Eddie's shoulder, his eyes so wide it looked like they were going to fall out into Eddie's popcorn. "Neither of you can whisper, and I am about to yell 'fire' just so the sound of everyone screaming will drown out your conversation. And then Mike will die and  _ never  _ forgive you. Is that what you want? To kill Mike? After all he's done for you?"

"Of course not," Richie assured. "I  _ want  _ to fuck my boyfriend until I throw up."

Stan threw a handful of popcorn at his face, angling it so it fell directly back on Richie's lap and not the floor. Easy, respectful cleanup. Eddie laughed at Richie's dumbfounded face, pulling his hand into his and resting them on his lap. Richie pressed his fingertips into Eddie's inner thigh, somehow managing to be soft even through the denim. Eddie pursed his lips and twisted their hands so Richie wasn't about to murder him, kissing Richie once he pulled away.

" _ Patience _ ," Eddie hissed, even though his skin was practically crawling with the need to be home, arguing over whether cinnamon candy was valid (it wasn't) and doing some weird sort of foreplay in between fighting over bags of juju hearts. 

" **_Fine_ ** ," Richie groaned, flopping back in his seat. He leaned back and squinted at the screen. "Why the fuck are they kissing? Aren't they cousins?"

"Since when are they cousins?" Eddie asked. 

"They're  _ not _ ," Mike insisted. "Maybe if you  _ watched  _ it--"

"Shhhh!" Ben urged. "...They're kind of cousins. But only technically."

Richie looked abhorred. " _ Technically? _ "

"Through marriage."

"And that doesn't  _ count!?  _ "

\---

Eddie woke up at three in the morning to the sound of their door opening and the clambering attempt at tip toeing Richie always did when he was trying not to wake Eddie up, but always did. He must've come in before, Eddie thought, because he smelled like coconut body wash when he came over to kiss behind Eddie's ear. He wondered if Richie always did that when he was asleep, but judging by the fact that Eddie always woke up when Richie 'snuck' in, he doubted it. Eddie smiled as he watched Richie scrub at his hair with his towel before throwing it in the hamper, the dark shadow of him moving throughout their room to put underwear on and nothing else, like Eddie would have minded.

Apartment searching was nearing for them, with Eddie and Ben poring over newspaper ads and walking in neighborhoods they'd like to live in, looking for open house signs. Those walks had only happened a few times, though, because being an architecture major was actually hell on earth, if Ben's class schedule said anything about it. This, however, meant that their so-called 'breadwinners' were working to the fucking bone. How Richie or Beverly still had cartilage in their knees after standing at Rock Bottom for their shifts, especially since Richie had started habitually taking doubles like he had something to fucking prove, Eddie would never know.

This was the result of one of those doubles, a twelve hour shift that Richie somehow managed to pass his classes despite, leaving him weary and exhausted. Usually, Eddie pursed his lips and chastised Richie for taking so many shifts, birthing three arguments from the time Richie got up to get dressed to the time he had to leave, usually ending in Richie coming home half a day later and both of them apologizing until they ended up either falling asleep or crying and then falling asleep after that.

It wasn't that Eddie didn't like money, or whatever he thought he looked like. He wasn't an idiot, of course he knew they needed money, he just didn't want Richie to feel like he was the only one who could get it. Eddie had started applying places, and was waiting to hear back, and then he hoped things would be a little bit different.

That day was different, though. Even though it was only two in the morning, Richie's birthday was already underway. 

Eddie stared at the achingly tired, half visible movements of Richie, his spine curled under the weight of his own stress like a straw that would break his own back. He sighed and squeezed in between his desk and the bed so he could climb into bed behind Eddie, which was unnecessary if he wasn't so stubborn about being the big spoon sometimes. 

"You gonna wake me up before you manhandle me?" Eddie whispered as Richie moved Eddie around to mold himself against his back. Richie flinched at the sound of Eddie's voice, then buried his head in Eddie's shoulder and breathed in slowly. 

"Didn't know you were awake," Richie muttered. "I miss you."

Eddie nodded, not wanting to upset Richie by turning around but doing it anyway. He had bags under his eyes, Eddie knew without having to see them, and he was about two days from dying of exhaustion. The moment Stan mentioned apartment hunting he went into this mode, and Eddie had barely seen him since. He was falling to pieces in front of him, and Eddie couldn't do anything about it. 

"I miss you too." He combed his fingers through Richie's wet hair. "Happy birthday."

Richie smiled despite looking like he'd rather do anything else. "Thanks. It's my last week of doubles before I'm back to the regular schedule. Bev too."

"Good. Y'know, when you're famous and shit, touring or whatever, it'll be a lot like this. Except, you'd only have to do, like, an hour show."

"Yeah, and this is way longer than that. Like, twelve times longer." He leaned into Eddie's hand still on the side of his face, holding back a whimper. "Sorry my hair is wet."

Eddie cradled the back of his head and kissed his forehead. "It's fine. Why  _ is  _ it wet? You usually just shower in the morning and let every set of bedding we own smell like booze for until we die."

Richie snorted. "Madge tripped on a barstool and dropped a whole tray of beer on me. Happy birthday to me, I guess." 

"I guess," Eddie agreed. He pulled Richie's face to him and kissed him, letting himself forget how late it was and that they really should be asleep. "I didn't get you anything, by the way."

"That's okay," Richie mumbled. "You have a globe for an ass. 'S gift enough."

"Fuck  _ off _ ." Eddie stared at Richie's confused face, wondering which turtle decided fate, decided to allow him the  _ gift  _ of being able to love and be loved by Richie. "Of  _ course  _ I got you something asshole. You'd be okay if I didn't? Actually?"

"You don't  _ need  _ to give me shit. Yeah, it'd be cool to be offended and want shit, but I'm tired, and you're  _ you _ , and after the gay-ass Christmas present and your cannibalization of me on Valentine's Day, I've got enough of you to last a lifetime." He manhandled Eddie again to roll him back over and pull him into his chest. "Not that that's in any way enough of you. I would like a hundred lifetimes with your globe ass."

"I fucking hate you," Eddie muttered. "I  _ did  _ get you something, because I'm not an awful fucking boyfriend--"

"Dude,  _ be  _ an awful boyfriend, I don't give a shit. You can be a good husband to me whenever that happens. I don't care if I have to assassinate the president, you won't always have to be my boyfriend. It's like your single years. Do what you want now, when we're dating, and then when we're married that's when I'm gonna start demanding shit. Diamonds. Ass implants. Four twentieth birthday parties in a row so that nobody knows my age. Hope you're ready."

"What the fuck are you  _ talking  _ about?" Eddie laughed. "You make  _ no  _ fucking sense right now.  _ Anyway _ ,  **moving on** . I got you a shirt that says 'World's Best Grandpa' and a gift certificate for the smoothie place." He craned his neck until it hurt and kissed the side of his head. "I wanted to get you a blender, or something I knew you would use, but I would've stuck my head in the thing if you woke me up to the sound of you making weird shit blenders aren't meant for every single fucking morning."

"Fair. Thank you."

" _ And  _ we can order Chinese from the place you like. You have work at seven, but we can do it when I get home from philosophy."

"Or we could eat before you  _ go  _ to philosophy and then bang when you get home."

"But then I won't be able to focus on philosophy." 

"Who  _ cares _ ." He sighed, leaning over Eddie to kiss him. "Thank you, though, really. It's the best birthday I could have asked for."

"It hurts how low your standards are," Eddie muttered, letting Richie slot his leg between Eddies and tangle themselves in each other. 

"My standards aren't fucking low," Richie insisted, with such an intensity it surprised Eddie, especially since it felt as though every part of Richie except his mouth were asleep. "You're just everything I ever fucking wanted. There is no standard, asshole, actually--You're the fucking standard. Now fucking--it's my birthday, go to sleep so we can do all the shit tomorrow."

Eddie scoffed and let himself relax, shutting his eyes as Richie's lips rested on the back of his neck. "Fine,  _ god _ . You're a fucking  _ bossy  _ birthday bitch."

Richie  _ chortled  _ against Eddie's skin. "Learned it from my boyfriend."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !! hope you enjoyed !! chapter title is from hungry eyes by eric carmen 
> 
> hmu on tumblr @sunflowersocialist !!


	10. i'll rock you till the daylight comes, make sure you are smiling and warm

If there was one thing Eddie loved about working in retail, if a grocery store could be _called_ retail, is that it wasn't food service. When he'd worked at Louie's in Derry, the fanciest restaurant they had, it was like you never caught a break. Everyone who came in was starving to the point of ravenous, and they _would_ yell at you for telling them their meals would be out in a moment, instead of already being there. It was like twelve dollar bottles of wine were their fucking oxygen, and if Eddie wasn't there with another one within two seconds, he could practically say goodbye to any sort of tip. But that was only the especially bad days, when the bell on top of the Louie's door triggered something that disconnected the common sense and kindness of some people inside the restaurant. Usually, he only had one incident per day, if that, because Derry was hell on earth, and would never let Eddie forget it, but even Derry had better ways to torture him than through Derry High alums shouting at him over chick piccata. 

He managed to find a perfect family-owned grocery chain in the middle of southern California, which he always assumed would only be big box stores, self-obsessed at how good they were at...providing basic necessities, but was consistently proved wrong. He didn't get a discount, which even Stan said was stupid, but he was still able to pick up groceries when they needed them at the end of his shift, which was convenient, and meant Eddie had total control of the snacks that they stockpiled in their dorm. 

Overall, though, it wasn't much different than Louie's. He still had to deal with the dinner-time rush, but instead of serving four screaming children plates of lukewarm macaroni and hot dogs, it was ringing up two boxes of Kraft, a package of Oscar Meyers, and twelve other things that somehow totaled to three hundred dollars. It was like being a waiter, like, four steps earlier, without having to worry about second degree burns and being able to go home without a thick layer of grease on his face. He made a quarter above minimum wage, which was more than Louie's, but without tips. He would've minded more if getting a job, even part time, and being able to keep it, didn't give him a large feeling of peace. His grades were good, he got to see his friends, and he didn't feel like he was two seconds from ripping his hair out at any given moment. 

The knowledge that a portion of the money in their lockbox was Eddie's didn't hurt either. 

"Do you want a moment to yourself, or something?" Richie asked, looking up from his copy of whatever fucking classic he was reading for his lit class, as Eddie groaned and fell to his knees, before dropping onto the floor.

"Why did I get a job?" Eddie whined, pressing his cheek to the plush fabric of their rug. He would be grossed out if they hadn't vacuumed it yesterday. "My back hurts, like, _all_ the time. Not in, like, a debilitating way, but it hurts a _little_ , a lot. Can you walk on my _spine?_ "

"Uhh, if you want to fucking die, maybe." Eddie smiled as Richie set his book down and got down from the bed. He pulled the comforter off of his bed, laying down and covering them both with it. "You wanna die?"

"Little bit," Eddie told him, pinching his fingers together. "I don't know how you do this for twelve hours a day."

"I get to drink," Richie joked. 

Eddie rolled his eyes and pulled his arm out from under him, flopping it on Richie's stomach. "Shut the fuck up, you do not."

"Fine, but also we're so weirdly busy all the time that I don't even _notice_ I've been on my feet for eight-ish, twelve hours until I'm walking home and my vertebrae are all grinding together like two assholes at a frat party."

Eddie snorted. "We've _been_ those two assholes at a frat party, asshole." He looked over at Richie, whose neck craned to look back at him, his glasses against the floor making them crooked on his face. "Do you still know how to crack people's backs?"

Richie nodded, reluctantly leaving their blanket of warmth and standing up, linking his fingers together and pushing out to crack them. Eddie sighed and went lax, usually refusing to let Richie even _think_ about doing it, because he didn't want to be fucking _paralyzed_ , but his spine needed fucking something, and they didn't have an ice machine on their floor. He jumped at the contact when Richie pressed his hands into his shoulder blades and rubbed circles into his skin. Eddie, silently, feared for his fucking life, even if he watched Richie do this to their friends millions of times before. 

"Eds, you have to calm the fuck down if you want this to work," Richie muttered. Eddie nodded and tried to go lax again. "Okay, now exhale." Eddie did, until he felt like his lungs were going to lay flat in his chest. "Oh, and I got a ten minute spot at the club downtown on Friday. You wanna come with me?" 

Before Eddie could answer, Richie pushed down firmly with all of his weight, causing Eddie's back to click loudly, even if it weren't entirely silent in their room already. Eddie groaned loudly, louder than he intended, as all of the tension in that part of his spine drained from him. He wondered if Richie was actually disconnecting nerves or something instead of cracking his back, and tomorrow Eddie would have to be rushed to the hospital because he fell down dead in class. 

" _God,_ " Eddie whined. He blinked back to their current plane of existence, remembering whatever Richie had said. "Of course I want to go, dipshit. When you get famous, and people who, for some reason, find you funny, give you a head so fat you can't fit in our fucking house, I'm gonna be doing an _actual_ job, and I won't be able to go to all your shows. So, I'll stockpile them now, and then I can ration that emotional labor throughout our lives."

"What would I do without you?" Richie cooed, pressing down again, lower this time. His back cracked again, less satisfying than the one before, but still fucking good. "This doing it for you?"

"It's doing _something_. This almost makes having to touch packs of chicken with my bare hands worth the trauma."

Richie hummed like he understood. He did _not_. "Sounds gross. Breathe out again?" 

"It was, but I want to actually help put the down payment on this apartment we're getting, pull my weight and all that sh- _it_ ," Eddie grunted when Richie cracked his lower back and it sounded like a fucking firework. 

"Your weight?" Richie asked, pushing on his back again to make sure he did it right. Eddie could fucking confirm he did it right, trying to hold back a moan as Richie lifted off of him and Eddie's whole body felt like a damn noodle. "You weigh, like, seven pounds. Soaking wet."

"Shut the fuck--"

"And five of that is your ass."

" _Die_ ," Eddie called as Richie laid back down next to him. Richie didn't reply, just laughed and grabbed his hand, not really seeming to mind that Eddie was too blissed out to actually reciprocate the gesture. Eddie couldn't even find it in his mind to want to hold his hand, or even open his eyes, or move, or fucking breathe. It did feel weird to lay next to Richie in their room without being pressed against him in order for both of them to fit in the space, but the lack of tension in his body helped him cope. "D'you think we're still gonna sleep so close when we have an actual bed for two people?"

Richie chuckled, sitting up and pushing off the floor to stand. "Maybe. Depends on what size bed we actually get. If we get a king, then you'll never see me again. I'm sorry, that's just how it has to be; I'll be on the other side of the fucking world with all that space."

Eddie rolled his eyes and got up, too. He didn't have a class until three tomorrow, which he hated because he had to wait all fucking day, but Richie had to get up by eight, and he liked to fall asleep with him when he could, because he was fucking clingy, okay? It wasn't a crime. Well, not to him. Other countries would probably say different. He held Richie's face in his hands, smoothing down his sideburns with his thumbs before kissing him, holding back his smile at Richie's noise of surprise in order to keep going, nipping at his bottom lip. 

"You deserve your own bed," Eddie murmured, trying to express his sentiment at Richie's home being taken away from him and always having to share Eddie's ever since that night his dad found out, but then realizing that they were in a whole ass relationship and didn't plan to end that any time soon. "You're just...never getting one."

"Thanks, you're so good at emotional support," Richie deadpanned, pulling away to take his pajama pants off and switch off the lights, plunging them into the dim light by their table lamp. He climbed into their bed, which was still Eddie's, even if it was _actually_ property of the University of Southern California, and collapsed against the mattress. "We do have to work on shit like that, though, cause we have the lists and everything for all the basics we need, but there's nothing besides that. Like, we have no specifics for anything. Do you want a headboard?"

Eddie shivered as he pulled his work shirt over his head and threw it in the hamper. "And have Stan smother us in our sleep for forcing him to know every time we have sex? Fuck no. We can get a footboard, though, if we have money leftover after the mattress and the dresser--"

"We're going thrift shopping for most of this, I hope you know. There are some rich ass people that live around here, estate sales are becoming our fucking Walmart. And I'm sorry, but if we find a couch on the street with a free sign on it--"

" _No_."

Richie coughed as Eddie jumped on top of him, putting his hands on Eddie's waist. "Eds, it just has to happen." He kissed his forehead quickly. "We may be a three income household, but we're still a bunch of broke assholes."

"Four incomes! And Bill, Ben, and Stan are working on it!" Eddie argued. "We're not getting furniture from off the fucking _street_. I'd rather live on the fucking street than get furniture from it."

"We just won't tell you where we got it from," Richie insisted, leaning over and turning their lamp off. 

Richie pulled Eddie close to him and shut his eyes, breathing out like all of the day's stress was being lifted from him. Eddie sighed and leaned his head on Richie's chest, hand loosely wrapped around Richie's upper arms and breathing in the warm scent of him. One day, they were gonna live in a huge house with the other Losers, and that huge room in that house would smell just like Richie. Like home. 

His body felt like it was coasting a landslide, slipping rapidly but smoothly into sleep. Richie seemed to be the same, his breath evening out like a slow grandfather clock, the even pattern of his breathing sending Eddie into unconsciousness. 

He wondered how long it would be before Beverly and Richie tried to push a piece of street furniture into their future home. 

\---

Apartment hunting in L.A. was maybe the worst experience of Eddie's life. Fuck the childhood trauma, the internalized homophobia, the _external_ homophobia from literally everyone around them in Derry, all the times he had to deny parts of himself just to make it to the next day. Apartment hunting trumped all of that. 

So far, they'd visited a total of about thirty places. Eddie had only been along for about six of these, but they'd all been going to whichever open houses were available, trying to get an idea on how far their money would carry them, and with what Eddie had seen so far, he wasn't very optimistic. He'd been to an abandoned warehouse that was labeled as a 'large, spacious studio apartment', that Bev only wanted to see due to the amount of square feet listed next to the picture. Richie took him to see a nice one that housed mostly college kids, just to show him what kind of standards he was looking for. He'd been to one that four people had died in, which the real estate agent managing the open house told him while smiling so wide it looked like her lips were pinned there. Stan pulled them out of there pretty quickly after that. He didn't mind living in a house where people had died, every house would eventually have someone die in them if someone lived in them long enough, he just didn't trust living in a house that lady represented. 

They'd all given each other tasks for apartment hunting. Stan and Richie were on budget, because Stan was going to be an accountant and Richie had a weird obsession with numbers, Mike, Beverly, and Bill were on going through newspaper ads to find listings, Ben was on making the 'wish list' of shit the apartment needed to have _structurally_ and weighing it against their options, and Eddie was on the list of everything they needed for each room, with Stan, Richie, and Beverly helping him, and him helping them whenever he could.

It was _hours_ spent, spreading out every newspaper they could find out and combing through them, crossing out ones that were out of budget, ones they could _maybe_ make work, if Stan and Richie moved things around, then comparing each page and crossing out doubles. Beverly was helpful in listing the shit they needed for each room and the furniture and everything, but Eddie noticed that, as they realized specifically what they could and could not have in their first apartment together, the wish list for Ben's dream house just grew, and grew, and grew. 

"How about this one?" Mike asked, lifting the newspaper above his head to look at the ad Mike circled in green sharpie. 

Richie and Stan squinted at it, like Richie didn't have glasses and Stan didn't have fucking working eyeballs. 

"Too much," Stan told him, sitting back down and looking at their entire notebook dedicated to money figuring. 

Richie snorted. "That's putting it a little fucking lightly. You tryna get skinny, Mikey? Cause if we live there, we're _actually_ not eating for two fucking years."

"You'd turn to dust, Rich," Mike smiled, looking at him upside down as he flipped onto another page of listings. "You need to do some body building or some shit."

"Eddie likes me just the way I am, thank you very much."

Eddie scoffed, flipping over to the next page of apartments in an area they could barely afford to breathe in. "Who said I like you?"

"Well, I don't know," Richie mumbled as he pulled his necklace out of his shirt, waving it around so Eddie could see. "I wonder where I got that idea." 

Richie laughed and let it go after Eddie flipped him off. 

\---

Eddie was practically vibrating in excitement as Richie turned his truck down the street, following Bill's car up to the apartment Eddie and Ben had found on one of their walks. It was within walking distance from their dorms, but nobody _actually_ wanted to walk that far, so they all just agreed to drive while Eddie was on the phone with the owner to set up a meeting. Then they also had a fight over who was going to drive and who was going in what car, not wanting Richie and Eddie to be in the car by themselves because this was a _family_ thing, and they shouldn't be split up, but then Stan brought them back to reality, because he didn't want to fucking _die_ on the way there, and so they took the truck while the others went with Ben, who led the way. 

His heart was pounding in his chest like it was about to explode, as Richie slung his arm around Eddie's headrest to parallel park the car, narrowly missing the curb. There had been an open house the day he and Ben saw it, like it was _calling_ to them, and every puzzle piece was falling into place. Stars aligned, the clouds parted and shone directly on the door, angelic choirs sang a verse from the book of Psalms. 

The house itself wasn't anything to balk at, but Eddie was so fucking sure that this house was the _one_ , that nothing else mattered. It was a duplex, with their god-given unit being the bottom one, rough whitish-blue exterior with smaller but well-meaning windows and a small, smooth set of stairs leading up an alcove to a bright green door with one of those big oval windows in it with decorative glass. The house number hung high up on the exterior wall, bold and _theirs_ , and Eddie couldn't wait. 

Richie whistled low as he looked at the house. His eyes scanned over the entryway, which was bare dirt due to them remodeling the entryway from concrete to tile, which Eddie knew would be hell when it rained, but he was willing to forgive it. "Why is there no yard?"

Eddie scoffed at him and swatted him in the arm. "Stop! We're recovering from a _drought_. We can plant grass or some shit, but you need to see the inside before you judge the outside. Book by its cover or whatever."

"Stan and Mike always wanted a garden," Richie agreed. "And, the drought was _years_ ago, dude. Relax. Is it nice on the inside?"

"We're here so I don't have to tell you, asshole, get out of the car." 

Richie rolled his eyes obnoxiously and sighed, unbuckling and clambering out of the car to join the rest of them. Eddie took a deep breath before he caught up with them, trying to quell the high frequency excitement emitting from his entire body. Luckily, Ben seemed to be the same way, opting out of the threeway hand holding chain he usually _loved_ with Ben and Beverly, holding his own hands tightly together underneath his chin as he gazed adoringly at the building. 

"Eddie!" Ben called as he walked up, pulling him into a hug. Eddie sighed into Ben's chest, half elated from first-apartment joy and half basking in the comfort of the best hugger out of all of them. He also always smelled like spearmint, which was nice. "We're here! Our house!"

"We haven't even voted on it yet," Bev laughed, "or _seen_ it! Nothing has happened yet! What if I get in there and it makes me want to vomit?"

Ben looked at her without a hint of concern. "There's a fireplace."

Beverly's eyebrows shot up as she grabbed her tiny sunglasses from her nose. "Take me inside."

Eddie felt lightheaded, which was surprising since the air quality of this neighborhood was fantastic despite its moderate traffic levels, as they walked up to the door. Ben rummaged through the mailbox and pulled out the key the realtor said she would leave for them, standing in front of the door before any of them could go in. 

"Before we go in, you should know--"

"Is it haunted?" Richie asked, trying to keep his face serious, but failing when Stan flicked him in the head and laughing under his breath. "...Are the ghosts sexy?"

"You're about to be _come_ a ghost if you don't shut the hell up," Eddie told him through gritted teeth. "And no, nobody cool died here."

"Shit."

" _Regardless_ , you should know, before we go in, one of the bathrooms is, like, bright red."

Stan blinked at him, obviously not expecting that to be Eddie's disclaimer. "What?"

"It's more of an orange, but yeah, bright," Ben agreed. "Just ignore it, the lady said we could maybe paint it. I asked. Just. Come on."

Eddie tapped his foot on the doorstep as Ben unlocked the door, a cold sweat breaking out across his skin in anticipation. He felt like a bundle of frenetic energy was bouncing around in his ribcage, every breath he took not enough but still overwhelming. He could see the smooth wooden flooring through the glass, the neutral gray wall on it that they would hang pictures on, or a painting, or anything they wanted, because it was _theirs_. Or, it would be, once Ben and Eddie convinced them that this was actually the mansion of their little broke college student dreams. The light breeze, warm with the oncoming spring, did little to comfort him, as adrenaline flooded his senses when Ben swung open the door.

The house looked smaller than it did the first time, but it didn't deter Eddie's excitement. The dimensions of the rooms were becoming more concrete to him, working their way out of his own conceptualization and into actual rooms. He could picture their living room, the huge sectional couch that was basically a staple of their dream home in all of their heads. His and Richie's room would be the one closest to the orange bathroom, he could just fucking tell, but he didn't mind, could imagine the gloomy purple-gray walls becoming theirs, littering them with movie posters and sticky notes, other shit that they would hoard because they both refused to throw away things they liked that didn't desperately _need_ to be thrown away. Stan called it their 'nesting habit', they called it _normal_ , **Stan** , _fuck off_ . He'd push their bed into one corner, because they were college kids and that's their _right_ , and he'd get to smother Richie in his sleep by choice, and not because their bed was one foot by one foot wide. 

" _Now_ ," Ben began, before any of them had the chance to actually see the fucking inside. "Don't be harsh on her, she's fragile. Not _structurally,_ " he promised. "Feelings-wise. And by her I mean me."

"Us," Eddie corrected. "Don't...judge too harshly, I might cry."

Eddie screeched as Richie grabbed him, pulling him so he collapsed against Richie's chest and squeezing his cheeks. "Aw, my Eds has feelings!"

" _Not_ for you!" Eddie hissed, pinching Richie's hands so he let him go. "I _hate_ you."

Richie gave him a toothy grin that Eddie hated him for. "Anger is a feeling."

"Just go in the house!"

\---

Beverly was already sold on the place, rambling on and on about the fireplace and the kitchen and how cute the living room was going to be while everyone listened with rapt attention, Stan nodding along like he was taking notes in his head. Eddie couldn't say the same, though, wandering down the hallway and facing all the open doorways, daylight pouring out of each of the rooms. Richie was in one of them, Eddie knew, feeling like the winner of a game show now trusted to guess which prize is the best one. Taking a totally non-educated guess, Eddie went into the gloomy purple painted room that Eddie said would be theirs if they decided to rent the place, not at all shocked to find Richie sitting on the hardwood floor. _Hardwood_. Eddie could cry.

He didn't hesitate before sitting down in front of Richie, waiting for him to say something. He knew Richie would, always did, and so Eddie eased into the light silence that passed between them. He unfolded his legs and laid on top of Richie's crossed ones, smiling when Richie broke from staring at the ceiling to smile at him. 

"We can afford this place, right? I'll be super pissed if you showed me this and then told me we couldn't afford it," Richie said, his voice quiet in the empty house, like he was trying not to draw attention to the fact that they were in the house, like the realtor lady hadn't given them a key.

Eddie snorted and inched closer to him. "We can afford it. Stan did all the math and shit, and he said money would be tight the first month, because of all the deposits and shit, but then we should be okay. Why? Do you want to live here or something?" 

"Fuck you," Richie muttered, holding Eddie's calves. "...I think I wanna live here. But can I handle Stan's entire night routine when I'm literally just trying to use the bathroom? Can I _really?_ "

Eddie laughed so loudly Richie jumped, doubling over when Beverly called out to them to ask what they were laughing about.

He opened his eyes to see Richie staring at him, undivided attention like a spotlight in Eddie's eyes. His body sank into the warmth of it, always willingly soaking in Richie's attention. He hoped nobody came in the room just yet, wanting to have this moment with Richie in the house they'd be living in, just for a second longer. 

Light poured in the room, bathing Richie in sunlight in a different way than their dorm did. When Eddie looked at Richie, he usually saw the cute dork he loved to hate or the hot asshole he hated to love, but now he just looked...beautiful. Eddie's heart beat heavily in his chest at him, his head slanted and showing Eddie his growing hair, once again curling at his nape. The gash on his eyebrow had started to scar, finally, after Richie's refusal to stop picking at it, which sort of made him look more attractive in a way he would never tell Richie about, hating how he got it in the first place. His glasses were forever huge, magnifying his deep brown eyes and the light glimmering off of them. 

As it got warmer, Richie started wearing his hawaiian shirts with no undershirt and leaving the top few buttons unbuttoned, which drove Eddie _nuts_ , and Richie knew it, but he didn't stop. It was warm enough to be called a winter heat wave in Maine, and so Eddie glanced down at the bare skin of Richie's chest, his ring dangling in the middle of it. 

Eddie closed his eyes and fell on his back, letting himself picture their room if they moved in. He didn't want to get into specifics, because Eddie was too cautious to let daydreams be concrete plans, but he could guess on some things. The walls were still neutral enough to leave unpainted, and Eddie liked purple anyway. Richie would say it had a Purple Rain vibe, and they could save money for the _horrid_ bathroom painting, and that would be that. A double bed, a closet that they would inevitably share that Eddie would use as an excuse to steal more of Richie's clothes, a dresser actually _meant_ for both of their clothes, instead of the one in Eddie's room where they were more of a car crash of small and mediums that neither of them could tell apart. They would keep the plush rug from their dorm, and even if they couldn't really fit a desk in here, there was that day room off of the living room where they could, and they could still study on their bed. 

He could barely contain his excitement about getting to wake up next to Richie in their bed, that wasn't Eddie's childhood bed with Richie squeezed in or university-owned, and going down the hall into their kitchen, knowing all of his friends were there too, sleeping or otherwise, and that they'd finally managed to get what they wanted for so _long_. He'd sit with Mike and wait until Stan woke up for him to make coffee, and Ben for breakfast, and him and Bill would set whatever tiny ass dining table they managed to fit in their breakfast nook. Beverly and Richie would either miss it entirely or wake up just as the food was almost done, willing to forsake sleep for scrambled eggs and Ben's pancakes. 

"Hey," Richie whispered, shaking Eddie's leg. "Thanks."

Eddie furrowed his eyebrows together and glanced up at him. "For what? We're literally just sitting here." He laughed and sat up, crawling to sit in Richie's lap and clasping his hands together at the back of Richie's neck. "For finding this nice ass apartment? You're welcome, fuckweed. Never doubt me again."

"No, not--" Richie laughed and shook his head, shoving his hands under the back of Eddie's shirt to rest above his waistband. "Not that. For, like...being my family, and shit. You've--All of you, have always _been_ my family, but especially since...my parents and stuff…" He trailed off and swallowed hard, blinking away tears in his eyes. Eddie's heart _pounded_. "You really, just, deal with me and don't complain, and--"

"You _dick_ ; I don't _deal_ with you. I love you! _We_ love you! You know this!"

"I know I know this!" Richie argued. "I'm just thanking you for it!"

"Well don't! We love you so _much_ . You're my fucking husband. Dude. _Richie_." Eddie frowned at Richie's sad fucking face, leaning back and getting off of him. Richie whined, reluctantly pulling his hands out of Eddie's shirt. 

Richie poked Eddie's leg with his foot. "What'd you do that f--"

Eddie took a deep breath and yelled, "DOG PILE!" 

He laughed as Richie's eyes widened, before tackling him onto the floor as the sound of a small stampede came from the hallway. Richie screamed as Eddie took him down, only becoming more hysterical as five more people piled on them all at once. Eddie swore his spine broke into a billion pieces, but he couldn't care, kissing the side of Richie's neck and leaning into his shoulder. 

Richie looked up at all of them. "Which one of you assholes just fucking kissed me? I'm _married_."

\---

Light rain fell outside of their dorm window as the morning ticked by, providing a gentle ambiance to the warmth inside their comforter. Richie's obnoxious fake snoring was muffled by his nose buried in Beverly's hair, her arms draped over the both of them in their bed. Eddie groaned and wiped the bleariness from his eyes, realizing for the first time what woke him up. The phone in the lounge was ringing like a fire truck siren, so harsh in his ears he was surprised it didn't fall off the hook. 

Eddie groaned. "Not it."

He opened his eyes to see everyone still asleep in the room, Mike and Stan curled into each other on Richie's bed while Bill and Ben were splayed out on the floor. 

Though Eddie knew him and Richie wouldn't be going back to Derry for spring break, it was nice that all of their friends were staying home with them. It wasn't really a choice, the drive would've taken longer than the break, but it still made Eddie feel a deep sense of comfort, so different from the hollow emptiness from Thanksgiving. Richie stopped snoring then, sighing dramatically as he rolled out of bed and slipped on a pair of Eddie's shoes, way too small for him, and left the room. 

Beverly stirred next to Eddie, grumbling in her sleep and rolling over to take the space Richie just left, curling into a ball and facing away from Eddie. Eddie huffed a laugh and got up, thanking everything in him that they turned down the idea to sleep in the common room the night before. He rolled over to pull Beverly close to him again, desperate for the warmth, and falling back asleep to the sound of the rain. 

Richie came back in a few minutes later, the sound of the door opening scaring the shit out of Eddie and making him wake Beverly up, steeped in the downright terror that some burglar wants to take their fucking pen collection. Richie came in with his head bowed, trying to minimize himself as to not wake anybody else up, not yet noticing he already failed. 

Stan woke up at the noise, meeting Richie's eyes as he looked at him. "What time is it? Uh...my...my dad was supposed to call."

Richie laughed, his face bright red. "Yeah, he called. He said he wasn't surprised to hear it was me because you told him you were staying in our building, but then he was like 'Oh, hey, while you're here," Richie mimicked Stan's dad, bending his arms at the elbows to take the stance of...whatever a grown man looked like to Richie. "And then he started fucking... _talking_...and he basically adopted me? I don't know, dude, but I guess we're brothers now. Probably wants to talk to you about bunk beds."

Eddie sat up with a million questions, but Stan said nothing. He dug his face into the pillow and said, "Dear _God_ , no. I can barely deal with you _now_." He lifted his face from the pillow, his hair sticking up everywhere. "What happened?"

Richie's smile fell, only just, into something quiet, biting his lips before telling them. "He, uh, well he called, and he was, like, saying how he was calling for you, and I was like yeah, duh, I'll go get him, but then he said...about, like...he asked me what happened over Christmas."

The whole room slipped from Eddie's grasp in that moment, as he struggled to drag himself from sleep and process what was going on. 

Stan sat up, visible alarm bells ringing in his head. "Richie, I am _so_ sorry--"

"He really didn't _ask_ , he just told me about how after...it happened, he saw my dad in town, and he saw all--" Richie coughed and sniffed, "--all the bruises on his hands. And you're dad--Stan, _dude_ , your dad is fucking _awesome_ , he talked to my fucking dad."

" _What?_ "

"He a _pologized_ for it! He told me he was _sorry_ , because he _asked_ my dad how he got those bruises--He said he knew, he talked about, like, how he wasn't stupid and everything, yeah, yeah, but my dad...Went _told_ him... _why_ he...did it. He told me he didn't want to bring it up, though, when we were at your house, in case I panicked and hauled ass out--"

"My dad would never say hauled ass," Stan breathed, sharing Eddie's state of awe and absolute _terror_. 

"But he said it was _fine_ , he said I was always welcome at your house, and that, if that's the reason Eddie couldn't go home, _either_ , then he's always welcome, too, and--" Richie cut himself off, smacking his hands over his eyes. Eddie felt his heart overflow for Stan's dad and crack when he realized Richie was crying, his body shaking as he stood there. 

Stan nodded without Richie saying anything, standing up to hug him. "I'm gonna go talk to him."

Richie nodded and crawled back into bed with Eddie, wedging into the small space between him and Beverly pulled Eddie tightly into his arms. Beverly muttered something and got off of the bed, stepping over Ben and Bill on the floor, who Eddie honestly forgot were even there, and climbing into Richie's bed next to Mike, who was still sleeping, a rarity for someone used to waking up at the ass crack of dawn to do farm work. 

"I fucking love you," Eddie whispered, grabbing Richie's shirt. "I'm fucking obsessed with you."

Richie laughed wetly. "That's gay."

"Shut _up_." He kissed Richie slowly, ignoring the fact that neither of them had brushed their teeth yet, pouring out a whole ass epic poem to him through this. 

They were still kissing by the time Stan came back, face bright and dried tear marks on his face. Mike leaned over to see who it was, smiling like an idiot at Stan's still sleep-mussed face. 

Stan rocked on his feet. "I just came out to my dad." 

Ben and Bill were awake now, still on their sides but bending their necks backwards to look at Stan upside down, equal amounts of shock on their face. 

"Am I having a stroke?" Ben asked, rolling onto his stomach to see him better. "What did you just say?"

Stan was talking to all of them, but he was looking at Eddie and Richie. "I asked him if he said what he said to you because he was being nice, or, or because he actually felt that way, and he said that fucking, like--" He stuck out his elbows to mime his father. "'Adonai invented love, and everything He creates is good, as long as it does not hurt others, He will love His children exactly as they are'--"

"Fucking _baller_ ," Richie sighed. 

Eddie stared at him. "Are you gonna leave me for Mr. Uris or something?"

Richie wiggled his eyebrows. "Now _that's_ a man I'd be fruitful and multiply with."

"I hate you so much."

"You're _ruining_ my _moment_ ," Stan complained. "I _will_ kill you, Richard. Hands off my dad."

" _Our_ dad."

"That's _worse!_ **Anyway** , I asked him about that, y'know, like, that's _cool_ , but what if, uh, what if your son was gay?"

Richie barked out a laugh so loud it woke Beverly, who startled with a snort and sat up. "Stan! You're the least fucking subtle person _ever_."

"I just wanted to know, okay!" Stan yelled, face bright red. "He threw a fucking fit at my bar mitzvah!"

"You said _fuck_ in _temple!_ " 

Eddie blinked. "You went to Stan's bar mitzvah? Weren't we fighting then?"

"I still wanted to be there to _support_ ," Richie muttered. "I was scared your mom would crush me like a bug if she saw me at your Confirmation the next year, though."

Beverly laughed. "She would have!"

"What did your dad say to that?" Bill asked, eyes wide and shiny as he hung onto every word.

"Oh, he said yeah! He talked about other stuff...mostly about me saying fuck in temple, and I was like oh, okay, yeah, I'm gay, and he said it was cool and he...he apologized for making me feel like I couldn't tell him that. Then we talked about break and school and everything...and that was it. It was...It was cool. Thanks, Richie." 

Stan leaned over and kissed Richie's forehead before getting back into his own bed, shoving between Beverly and Mike, because Stan was an asshole, and kissing Mike fully on the mouth with a sense of urgency Eddie had never seen in him. He felt like he was watching something he wasn't meant to see, not knowing how Beverly still managed to stay calm and half asleep as they basically cannibalize each other in their dorm room. Preferring not to be some weird pervert intruding on Stan and Mike's... _moment_ , he turned back to Richie and kissed him again.

\---

If Eddie had learned one thing about himself and his friends, it was that, above all else, they were prone to chaos. It didn't matter if they'd planned it or not, breaking into the local pool or riding shopping carts down the steepest hills in Derry until Bill almost ran into a tree and _died_ , they would still manage to be loud and generally annoying to anybody who had to stand them for longer than five minutes. He loved the noise, the background sounds of his friends laughter while he struggled to study because he was laughing too hard, and he wouldn't trade any of it for the world. Even if he did enjoy the silence some of the time, who _wouldn't?_

It was Eddie's day off, after he switched shifts with a girl so she could go to her nephew's christening or whatever she said, giving him time to study for this stupid fucking exam he had the next day. Richie was at work, but he wasn't alone; Mike had hidden away in their dorm after his and Stan's next door neighbor decided it would be the perfect time to throw a party. Stan was at the library with Ben, and Bill was who knows where, so it was just them two, with Mike surrounded in piles of his own books while Eddie tried to remember if he actually knew how to read or if his mind was just playing fucking tricks on him these past few years. 

Eddie noted Mike shutting his book as he realized it'd been a couple minutes since he'd turned a page, clearing his throat so Eddie would look at him. 

"How's...studying going?" He asked, like he never met Eddie before and was trying to ask him to pronounce something. 

Eddie looked up at him, only to see Mike's eyes trained on the floor, and smiled. "How it usually does. You know, consumers, markets. Publics and Audiences and shit. Why?"

It was like a combination to a vault when you talked to Mike sometimes. Theoretically, Eddie knew how to unlock it, knew how to turn all the little dial numbers and work out just how to get Mike to talk to him, but he lacked the graceful deftness Stan had, that Eddie guessed came with being with him for...however long they were together, or Richie, who was obsessive in his friendships to the point where it was endearing. He watched Mike for a minute, his socked foot perched on Richie's bed frame so he had the leverage to bounce his leg up and down, staring at his closed book like he could study anything from it. 

"No reason," Mike muttered, before scrunching up his face. "K _i_ _nd_ of a reason. Like, one that totally doesn't go with the...vibes of the night."

"You're a dumbass," Eddie said, placing his book at his side. "What's _wrong?_ "

Mike shifted in his seat. "You...never...If your mom hadn't seen you and Richie on the street that day, would you have ever...told her?"

"Oh." Eddie reared back at the question, honestly not expecting with a conversation that opened with him asking about how studying for Eddie's fucking design class. "No."

"Like...ever? Not even in, like, a Richie way, with...arrogant dumbassery and gay spite?"

"No. Richie was literally the only thing in my house that my mother hadn't ruined for me, and I wasn't...giving her that opportunity no matter what. She would've probably barred my window and locked me up forever in my room, and Richie would have to camp out in the yard or something. No good would have come from it, and I wouldn't have ever been happier or relieved having sat her down and told her. Why? Are you okay?"

Mike cleared his throat and nodded. "I...I'm bisexual, right? But...I don't know...if I ever want to tell my grandpa that. He's a fucking _farmer_ in _Maine_. He's not necessarily the ideal for progressive thinking, which, like--You're _Black_ in _Derry_ , pick a _struggle_ \--"

"Mike," Eddie laughed, trying to get him to stay on track. 

" _Ugh!_ "

"You don't have to come out to _anyone_ if you don't want to. This is the first time you're actually coming out to _me_ , actually, but--! You don't have to do that."

Mike collapsed back on the bed. "I don't know, though! It would be easier if I knew anything about it in _advance_ , but I don't! My grandpa doesn't _care_ about gay shit, he's focusing on the fucking... _animals_ and the fields or _whatever_ , and, and Stan's dad was totally cool! Like, not even weird about it, they talk all the time, Richie's dad is a fucking _asshole_ , to put it super fucking lightly--"

"I understand."

"And your mom _sucks_ , no offense."

"None taken."

"Bev's aunt was super cool about it, but there was that two month period where she acted really weird. And if I don't ever tell him...how will I ever know? Like, he loves me, but Richie's parents loved the fuck out of him, and, and I don't...I'm...I don't want to lie to him."

"It's not a lie, Mike, it's just...I don't know what it is. But it isn't the same as lying to him, and it isn't your fault." Eddie sighed, trying hard not to cry for him, closing his books and putting them away to make more room on his bed. "It's...honestly? Surviving? You have to do what you can to survive, even if it sucks. But it is _not_ the same as lying to him."

"I just don't want to lose him. But I really, _really_ don't ever plan on breaking up with Stan. When...When I think about my future, it's Stan, everywhere. I don't--Unless _he_ breaks up with _me_ , he's kind of the only one I ever want to be with. This is why I want to be a librarian. There's no...fuckin'...possibilities for confusion here. Not like _this_."

Eddie snorted. "Not in accounting, either. _God_ , you two are gonna have the most boring fucking house."

"...Our house _is_ your house, asshole."

" **Shit**."

\---

Eddie couldn't see the alarm clock on their nightstand, but if he had to guess, he would put it somewhere after two in the morning, Mike's shoulder obstructing Eddie's view. Why all of the tall Losers let Eddie be the big spoon, he had no idea, but he felt like a toddler whenever it happened. Though, he would take the weird feeling if it meant being able to comfort his friends like this on any given day. Mike was warm against Eddie's front, quiet but clearly not asleep, but not saying a word. 

"Do you think we'll ever get to the point where we get tired of each other and not actually want to live together anymore?" Eddie whispered, grinning when the sudden invasion of silence made Mike jump. 

"Probably not," Mike said. "We can always ask Ben to change the blueprints, give us all a separate wing. Lord knows I don't need to know what those three do, _or_ you and Richie, either. Me and Stan can have the quiet wing, the one that gets haunted when we buy, like, a decrepit old map for decor and it ends up having a dead pirate attached."

"Dead...pirate. Okay." Eddie buried his face in Mike's shoulder as they both laughed. Mike's hair had grown out since they came back to school, so busy with his new classes that he hadn't been able to go to the barber, and it brushed against Eddie's forehead as they laid there. "What if we have kids? Like, adopt them or something. Or, if Beverly gets pregnant. Am I ready to be an uncle?"

"Oh my god, Eddie." Mike shook trying to suppress it, but he eventually failed. He was giggling so hard he clutched his stomach to make it stop. "Shut _up!_ "

"I'm _not!_ And Richie would spoil it! He saves money like a _freak_ , and he's gonna be fucking famous! Oh my _god_ , if me and _him_ ever have kids...I'd never rest. I'd be a helicopter parent. Not like my mom, because fuck that--"

"You'd never be like your mom."

"But, like, if my kid ever came home and said, 'Hey, I'm going to the fucking _quarry_ to _cliff dive_ with six assholes you hate,' I'd flip! And Richie would be like 'Cool, don't die,' and then pace the house until they got home. We'd be the worst." He blinked tears out of his eyes he didn't remember getting there. "...Why do I want that? Oh my god, if we _homeschooled_ our kids--"

"We'd suck at that."

"But it'd be so _funny_."

" _Edward_."

" **Michael**. You would teach them all to read--"

"Not _once_ have I _ever_ volunteered for that."

Eddie ignored him. "And Bev would be the weird, eccentric art teacher who covers the house in glitter and my fucking tears. Stan would be the math teacher, Ben would be gym and English. I could be...the nurse?"

"I'm sure Richie would like that," Mike joked, chortling to himself. 

"I _will_ push you off the bed, Mr. Hanlon. Don't think I won't." He squeezed Mike around the middle as a warning. "But they could never be homeschooled. We'd look like a cult.

" _Look?_ We're, like, one breakdown away from building an effigy of Richie to burn in the quad."

"Are you kidding? He's, like, twenty-five feet as is. To scale, we'd hit _moon_ before we got to his fat head. And deforestation is a serious issue."

"Of course," Mike agreed.

They kept talking before falling asleep like that, the night creeping by unknowingly until Eddie woke up again, at sometime around four. He could see the clock now, as Mike had turned to lay on his back, with Eddie on his stomach and his one arm thrown against Mike's chest. He looked around the room, surprised to see Richie hunched over his desk, scratching a pencil over a piece of loose leaf. 

"What are you doing?" Eddie asked, wedging his hand between him and Mike to push himself up to sitting. Mike grunted when Eddie knocked into him, his eyes dragging open as he realized he wasn't in his own dorm. 

"Mike's math homework," Richie replied, erasing the numbering he was doing and switching them. Eddie smiled at it, knowing that, for some reason, always doing the wrong math problems and switching the numbers up was something Richie did frequently. It pissed him off to no end in high school, when the habit made it way obvious that Eddie was copying his work when all of the same numbers were swapped, without Eddie even noticing enough to switch them. 

" _Why?_ "

"He said it was due tomorrow morning, and you two look like you'd gone into a small _coma_."

Mike beamed at him, all dopey with sleep. "Thanks, Rich." He looked over at Eddie. "You have got a catch, don't ya."

Eddie rolled his eyes. "As if. He _never_ does my homework."

"'Cause I don't know how the fuck psychology applies to statistics! I see how it's useful, what it does, but why the fuck is it a _math_ class?" He swiped eraser shavings off of the page. "Plus, you get sex."

"Just for that, _you_ don't," Eddie huffed, turning back over and going to sleep to the sound of Mike's laughter and Richie's offers to do his stats homework if he took back what he said.

\---

"So...what were y'all talking about?" Richie asked, lying on top of Mike after they both refused to move to make space, too comfortable. 

"Nothing," Eddie murmured, loosely holding Richie's hand in his own and playing with his fingers. "The Loser house."

He didn't want to say any more, because he and Richie never...actually...talked about having kids. Eddie only rarely had time to think about it himself, and it was never definite on whether they'd actually ever be able to have kids, adopt them or otherwise. Eddie wasn't even sure he _wanted_ kids. If his child ever went through what _he_ went through as a kid, he didn't know if he'd _physically_ be able to handle that. Honestly, he would probably kill whatever terrorized them himself, and he already had a kill count higher than an eighteen year old's should be. He didn't know if Richie would feel the same way or not, or how Eddie would react to Richie telling him how he felt. They had bigger things to tackle than the future, like figuring out the present. Or, coping with the fucking past, if they were making a to do list.

"What about it?" Richie asked, calm and leaning into Mike's chest. One of Mike's hands came up to card through Richie's hair, twirling his curls around his finger before letting it go. 

"About running Ben into the ground trying to build additions for all the kids," Mike said, innocently not wondering whether him and Richie had ever discussed that before. Eddie wondered if him and Stan had. 

Richie looked at both of them. "Is Beverly…?" 

"No, no, no, no, no," Eddie assured. "Just, in theory." He looked over at Richie, only to find Richie looking right at him. 

"Oh, cool." Richie tightened his grip on his hand. "Can we name our kid something weird? Like...Santa, or some shit. Porcelain. Can the government force you to change your kid's name?"

Eddie was almost bursting with emotion at that point. "We're not naming our kid fucking Porcelain."

"The second one can have a normal name, I promise. Just _one_. Streetlamp Tozier-Kaspbrak. Concrete Tozier-Kaspbrak."

"I _hate_ you."

Richie struggled to keep his voice level as he continued to lay on top of Mike, who was shaking with laughter. "Mary Wanna Tozier-Kaspbrak. Weedy as a nickname."

Eddie shoved both of them and ignored their cackling. "Oh my _God_."

\---

Sometimes, just sometimes, Eddie actually could not handle just doing normal shit with Richie without some sort of romantic aspect. It was like this big ball of tension grew in his chest the longer he went without it, like he was addicted to the gentle intimacy of Richie's touch. As if he was still making up for lost time. He was able to see Richie neutrally, just as his boyfriend, and not love him just the same, but sometimes, in the offbeat between one second and the next, it blindsided him, the acute details of his face and the way Eddie fucking _loved_ every bit of him, every stupid word that came out of his mouth, even if it was an impassioned rant about politics in the 1960s, even if Eddie had no desire to remember the Marshall Plan, the details coming from Richie's mouth were exciting, it was a story, not just a jumble of facts like their old history teacher had given them. He wanted to spend all of his time wherever Richie was, held tightly in his arms. 

At the end of an eight hour shift, there was little Eddie wanted to do besides sleep. Richie, coming home at the end of his own eight hour shift, understood that. Sunday was supposed to be a day of _rest_ , but not for them, two resident idiots who took up as many shifts as possible in order to take on two sevenths of monthly rent. 

They started playing cards, not willing to do anything else on the increasingly hot day, before Eddie was too tired to actually _strategize_ , and that nagging itch to wrap into Richie and not let him go began to pool in his stomach. Not willing to ignore it, he set his own cards down on top of the discard pile and set them away, pulling Richie's cards gently out of his hands. He didn't have any good cards anyway, Eddie observed as he set them down.

"What are you--oh!" Richie smiled as Eddie climbed into his lap, putting his hands on Richie's broad shoulders and sliding them upwards so he was cradling his face. He tipped his head. "Howdy, pardner."

"Hey," Eddie whispered, openly staring at Richie below him. 

Richie's eyes fluttered closed, his own hand wrapping around Eddie's wrists just to hold them. "You know I love you?"

"I know."

"But do you _know?_ " Richie asked, his eyes popping open with his sudden insistence, no longer passively melting into his touch but pushing into it actively, like he wouldn't know what to do if Eddie moved away. "I _love you_."

"I _know_."

"Like, everything about you is perfect," Richie told him, inching them back so he was leaning against the wall. "I feel like I don't tell you enough."

"You literally keep me from throwing myself off of the deep end _daily_. That's how you tell me."

Richie wouldn't even make eye contact with him, training his eyes down onto their laps. Not a bad view. "Still. Just now, I was thinking, like, you look so fuckin' _cute_ , and my heart does, like, flips and shit when I see you, even if I've basically been staring at you every second of every day since 1980, and I was like, wow, I should tell him that, and then you took my cards out of my hands and _mounted_ me--"

"Ew."

"And it's just, I love our weird mind meld shit, and you, and how you're warm and smell like... _hearth_ \--"

" ** _Hearth?_** **"**

"Like a _home_ , even if this isn't our home, _you_ always smell like coming home, and the way your hair falls into your forehead like it does, and it's all _coiffed_ and shit. You have really nice eyes, and your smile is like a fucking adrenaline shot to the _brain_. I literally...whenever you smile, and it's because of _me_ , of some dumb shit I did, _god_ \--" He buried his face in Eddie's chest, which was slowly filling up with water or _something_. Something medically dangerous was going on in his fucking body right now. 

" _Richie_."

"Your _voice_. It's...if I was lost at sea, for, like, seventy days, and I'd given up at that point and resigned myself to death, and I heard you calling my name from nine hundred miles away, and you _laughed_ when you did it, I'd swim to you...just to be able to hear it. I want you to be the last thing I ever know. When I'm old and senile and don't know how to use my dick for any of its intended purposes, I want you to be the last thing I ever know." He sniffed, but he wasn't crying. "I _love_ you. You're the best husband any dude could ask for. I like how organized you are, and I think it's really cute when you get defensive and huffy about being obsessive, even if you are."

Eddie instinctively puffed out his chest to defend himself, but Richie beat him to responding, mumbling, "There it is."

"Fuck you," Eddie mumbled, pressing his mouth against the crown of Richie's head. 

"I think you're cool, even if we're lame as shit," Richie said. "I know we're lame, but you talk about weird stuff all the time, _fungi_ and shit, and I'm... _enthralled_. When you started talking about the dangers of _moss?_ I've been in love with you for _years_ , and I'm still not at the point where I can lovingly tune you out. I'm not even at the point where I want to." He pulled his head back to look at Eddie and made a face. "You're my dream boy," Richie whispered, trying to joke even if Eddie knew he was being serious. Eddie could barely _believe_ he was being serious, but he was.

Eddie stared at him. "And you're totally okay? Nothing happened at work?"

"Yes, I'm fine; no, nothing happened at work." Richie promised. "Some days are just...y'know."

"I know."

He wondered if they really were...weirdly telepathically connected, as he ducked down to kiss Richie again. It was soft and undemanding, almost rambling in its lack of urgency, as Eddie reached down for the hem of Richie's shirt and pulled it over his head. Unsurprisingly, Richie understood that Eddie wasn't asking for anything more than that, kissing Eddie the moment the shirt was over his head, not even giving Eddie time to throw the shirt in the hamper before pulling him in again. Eddie dropped the shirt on their bed before pulling away and taking his own off. Not even waiting for Eddie to fully pull the fabric over his head, Richie placed his hands firm on Eddie's waist, solid and comforting. Eddie sighed, the contrast of Richie's pale skin on his and the size of his hands melting all of the tension from his body. The whole world was on the other side of the window, but here, it was just them. And that was all that mattered. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from damn I wish I was your lover by sophie b. hawkins !! 
> 
> a soft chapter for the mf soul


	11. how in my silence i adored you

Eddie stumbled out of their room and followed the asshole who lived down that hall from them, who really wasn't that bad, except for the fact that he woke Eddie up at  _ five  _ in the fucking morning to answer a fucking phone call when it could have literally been the Pope and Eddie would not have cared less. He had to get up in two hours  _ anyway  _ , and he couldn't even decide whether he was going to go back to sleep or just stay up until he had to get ready. He could probably wake Richie up and talk about shit they needed for the apartment before they both had to leave, if Richie wanted to stop sounding like an air raid siren any time soon. 

The asshole in question traipsed back down the hallway from which he came, arms swinging mockingly, asking Eddie if he was jealous that  _ he  _ got to go back to sleep. Eddie scowled and picked up the phone, ready at any point to reach through the phone and murder whichever Loser was on the phone with their dumbass question at the break of fucking dawn. He was not in the mood to be kind.

" _ Yes? _ " Eddie asked, wanting to get over this so he could go back to sleep. 

"Hello? Do I have the right phone number? I'm looking for  _ Richard Tozier _ ." The woman on the other line said Richie's name slowly, like they wanted to make sure he heard it right. Eddie froze. 

He straightened up. "Why are you calling? How did you even get this number?" 

When he first heard a woman's voice, he assumed it was Beverly, but it sounded nothing like her. He thought maybe it was some girl in a class with Richie, that he gave her this number to call him for a project and she was just an inhumanly early riser. Then she said the fucking  _ name  _ , and Eddie just knew he was talking to Richie's mother, the last thing he expected for five in the morning. The last person he  _ wanted  _ to talk to in the entire earth after what she'd done to Richie. Or, what she hadn't done. 

"Eddie?" She asked, voice tense and sniffling. "I, uh, I was calling to see...where Richie would be staying this summer? I just..." She trailed off before coughing to break up the silence. "Can I talk to him?"

He stared in the direction of their dorm, his hands shaking in fear and rage and something he can't even name because he's so fucking angry that she would even  _ call  _ here. 

"He's staying here," Eddie answered. "And we don't plan on coming back." 

"Oh."

"I guess you're relieved, you won't have to worry about Went's breaking his hands on Richie's face this year." He bit the inside of his cheek when she didn't say anything, like she was still waiting for Richie to come on the phone. "Richie can't talk right now. He's asleep."

As much as she didn't deserve it and as mad as Eddie is, he couldn't,  _ wouldn't  _ deny Richie the choice that wasn't even Eddie's to begin with. But he wouldn't let this pass lightly. He would never forget that this was the woman who watched Richie's father  _ beat  _ him,  **twice** , and she didn't do or say anything either time. Even if she couldn't stop Went, she didn't live under his thumb. Not at first, anyway, but Eddie didn't know what all had changed in the months Richie had been out of that house, since they'd been in California. 

" _ Shit _ , I forgot about the time difference," she muttered to herself, and Eddie almost wanted to laugh. It was the same Maggie Tozier she'd always been, but then, if she was, that made it worse. "I-If I call again later, and he is awake, but you answer, would you let me talk to him?"

"That...That's not...my choice to make. I'll tell him you called, but I swear to god if you hurt him again--"

"I  _ know _ ," she breathed. "I  **know** . I-I want to make it  _ right _ , I want to see...I want my son back.  _ Just  _ as he is. I'll do anything." She swallowed a sob, but Eddie could still hear it crackle through the speaker. "Eddie, please."

He nodded. "I'll tell him you called."

" ** _T_** **_hank you_ ** ."

\---

Eddie was still shaking by the time he got back to their dorm, pushing open the cracked door so he wouldn't have to take his keys, kicking off of his shoes and sliding back into their bed. Richie wasn't snoring anymore, so Eddie knew he was awake, trying and failing to smile when he turned to him, even when his eyes turned golden brown from the oncoming sunlight. 

"Are you having, like, stomach problems or something? You were gone  _ forever _ ." Richie was still half asleep, his hair mussed everywhere and his expression free from worry and soft, but Eddie could barely look at him. He sat up and got out of bed again, reluctantly pulling away from Richie's arms and standing in front of him. 

" _ Why?  _ " Richie whined. "I'm freezing in here."

"Your mom called," Eddie blurted out. Richie's eyes snapped open. "She called, I don't know how she got the number, but she did and she called and said she wanted to talk to you, that she wants you back, and she asked me where you were staying this summer, and I told her here," he rushed out all in one breath, moving aside when Richie literally turned green and pushed past him, grabbing his toiletries carrier along the way. 

Eddie waited for Richie to come back, flushed and pale and only slightly less green, sitting back down on the bed and looking at him. 

"What...Did she say anything about...the...about us? About me?"

Richie looked hollow, like he would blow away if Eddie exhaled, crumble if Eddie touched him. It took everything in him to remain as a whole person, and not a pile of dusted. Trusting he wouldn't, _begging_ he wouldn't, Eddie set his hand on his shoulder and kissed his forehead. 

"She said she wanted you back, just how you are. She didn't say gay or anything, but I think that's what she meant, which is good. She forgot about the time difference, so she probably would've called later--"

"It's Monday," Richie noted, nodding. "My dad leaves at eight; she probably called me the second he was gone. Do I do this? Is…" He curled up into a ball on the bed and buried his head in his knees. "Is this okay?"

"I don't know, Richie, I don't...Do you wanna think about it? You don't have to do  _ anything  _ for her--You don't owe her  _ shit _ , but if you  **want** to, that's fine. If you  _ don't _ , then that's fine too." He swallowed around the hard lump in his throat. "You don't have to be ashamed to love someone who hurt you. And...even if it doesn't go well...if you talk to her and decide...that she hasn't changed as much as she needed to, in-in order to earn, and I mean  **_earn_ ** , your respect, or love, or forgiveness, then you don't have to ever speak to her again." He kissed Richie's head again. "You don't have to speak to her ever again, even without giving her another chance. Every day you went without seeing her was a chance she had to come to you, and she didn't. It's your decision. And I support whichever one you make."

"...I can't decide now. I...can you--"

Eddie didn't wait for him to finish, wrapping his arms around the unfurled form of Richie and holding him there, for as long as he needed him to.

\---

Sharing a room with the frustratingly persuasive asshole with the shortest attention span on the planet may be the worst decision Eddie ever made. The easiest, because even if they weren't together, they still would have shared a room, but also the dumbest, as him and Richie sit leaned against one another going through piles of pictures Richie had just gotten developed. He'd had the idea to do it a couple weeks ago, so they wouldn't have the bulk of, frankly, tens of disposable cameras from after Ben's seventeenth birthday to now. It resulted in a huge stack of pictures that Eddie didn't want to even  _ know  _ the price of, which they were sorting into two piles: embarrassing and unusable, and perfect and able to be framed to put in their apartment. 

"You do know we have other shit to do?" Eddie asked, thumbing the glossy corner of a picture of Stan and Beverly at prom, their heads knocking together as Beverly wrapped her shawl around both of their heads, smiling so widely their cheeks were squished together, the flash making them look washed out and sweaty. Eddie put it in the to-frame pile. 

Richie laid a picture of Ben giving him a piggyback ride on the frame pile. "It'll get done."

They had finals in a good two days, and they'd spent all of their free time either eating, sleeping, or having twenty minutes of just dead silence in the room so they could actually get a grip and calm the fuck down. It hadn't been working, and Richie was panicking more so than Eddie this time around, which worried Eddie  _ more  _ . To add to that stress was the fact that they started packing up their dorm to prepare to move into their apartment, since they wouldn't have much time after finals were over. 

"Fine, but when we move in and none of your shit is in there because you refuse to pack your  _ unnecessary  _ garbage, don't blame me." As he spoke, Eddie slid a picture of Richie behind him without Richie seeing. "That's all on you."

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered. "You gonna whistle at me and shit when I'm helping Bill carry in our huge fucking couch?"

"Depends on if your shirt is on or not."

Richie looked at him, eyebrows furrowed. "Which would be better?"

Eddie crawled away from him to snag their packing list from the desk, split up into two columns, one for each of them, of what would need to go in each box. Despite Eddie having been packing longer, they were at pretty equal progress, with Eddie in the lead ever so slightly.

"What would be  _ best _ , is if you packed up your books and shit so we could actually move out before our RA just throws all of our shit on the quad."

Richie wasn't paying attention anymore. "Who took this?"

Eddie turned to lean his head on Richie's shoulder, looking down at the picture of him and Richie in a field, Mike's property considering they hadn't received any trespassing offenses in a year and a half. A field they left empty that summer so it could repair itself, Richie's arms wrapped tightly around Eddie's waist as he spun him around. Eddie was  _ screeching _ , but his smile was evident, Richie's face sunburnt and smiling maniacally , holding onto Eddie like he would float away if he let go. It wasn't a good photo by any means, the sun outshining half of them and making the photo look overexposed. But you could see them. 

"No clue," Eddie mumbled. "We're cute, though." He gently took it out of his hand and set it in the frame pile. 

"'S all you, Eds." He kissed the side of Eddie's head. "Allllll you."

"Fuck off and pack." Eddie flicked the side of Richie's head until he got up and started folding all of his winter clothes and putting them in a suitcase. 

Waiting until he was distracted, Eddie took the picture of Richie out from under the bed again. It wasn't anything special, and Richie would probably hate it if he saw it. It was only him, without a gimmick or a little mustache drawn on, or someone else for him to look funny with, wide smile across his face and bright eyes. His glasses were pushed high up on his nose, his curly hair falling almost romantically to frame his face, his hands clasped over his heart like he was laughing and someone caught him at the tail end of it. His over sized jean jacket, still covered in grass stains, was hung on his shoulders, but his arms weren't in the sleeves.

Richie carried a picture of Eddie in his wallet. His senior picture, actually, cut out of his own yearbook because he thought Eddie looked 'handsome' in it. At that point, Eddie didn't even look when Richie opened his wallet, knowing he'd see half of his own face peeking out from behind Richie's license, both his real and fake ones. Eddie, though, didn't want to mutilate his senior yearbook, even if the picture of Richie in his dark black suit smiling smugly at the camera did make Eddie's heart race. Even then, he never found a good enough picture to keep for himself without Richie knowing a picture was being taken, and fooling around just for the camera. But it didn't mean he didn't want one.

Quietly, he folded the picture up, pressing down on the creases so it laid flat and stuffing it inside his wallet. Richie, meanwhile, haphazardly threw long sleeves into his suitcase, plopping down on top of it in order to zip it closed. Eddie looked up to find Richie already staring at him, back against Eddie's desk drawers while he did, like he wasn't in the middle of anything.

"What?" Eddie asked, shoving his wallet back in his pocket. 

Richie smiled at him. "Just like looking at you, Spaghetti. Anything wrong with that?"

"Yeah,  _ asshole _ .  _ I'm  _ trying to look at  _ you;  _ i t doesn't work if you know about it." Eddie checked his watch, his shining calculator watch that Richie, once again, hated. "We only have twenty minutes until we have to go back to studying anyway."

Richie frowned. "Boo. Go on a date with me."

"Right now?" Eddie laughed. 

Richie hurriedly zipped his suitcase and crawled over to him, plopping down on Eddie's lap like he wasn't way too tall for it, his knees shoved halfway under the bed in a way that had to be painful. Eddie wasn't sure about this, as Richie's ass bones dug into his thighs, but he didn't go to move him. 

"We can get Thai food and I can quiz you on fucking Language of the Mind," Richie said, putting on a stupid nasally voice to say the class name and smiling when Eddie rolled his eyes. 

Eddie's eyes fluttered shut when Richie brushed his thumbs over his cheeks. "I hate your spontaneous tendencies."

"You don't." Richie kissed him softly. He smelled like fresh air and laundry detergent. "If we didn't have a whole schedule to follow right now, I would probably try and seduce you." He wiggled his eyebrows until Eddie threw his head back and laughed. Seizing the opportunity, as Richie always did, he kissed the smooth plane of Eddie's neck. 

" _ Try  _ and seduce me?" Eddie asked, so gently he wasn't sure if he actually said it. Richie hummed, though, tickling Eddie's throat with the vibration. 

"Sometimes," Richie muttered, "I want you so badly it hurts." 

Eddie swallowed around the words, trying to conceal the shock it gave him. For years he denied Richie could ever love him, not because Eddie was terrible, or anything, but because he...wasn't...not? He was fine, but that's all he was. Richie was...everything great in the world...the proof that no matter how much someone had been through, they could always strive for something greater than themselves. To improve continuously without needing a tangible goal. 

The thought that Richie felt the same, no matter how many times he made it clear, still surprised Eddie. He was gonna need it in writing, like a paragraph on the palm of his hand, whenever him and Richie weren't plastered all over each other. Growing up as a gay kid in a homophobic town he spent his whole life thinking he was never going to be loved back, that it wasn't in him to be lovable, and the drowning loneliness he succumbed to would be his eternity. To be validated in that love felt like a whole new life, to breathe after having been suffocated. He felt his body roll into Richie's, jaw falling open as Richie ducked lower to press his lips to the skin above Eddie's collarbone. 

" _ Richie _ ," Eddie gasped when Richie bit down and sucked, tugging at Richie's hair. "F-Food, then study. We don't have t _ i _ me for this."

Eddie felt like his whole body was on fire wherever Richie touched him, his heart beating so loudly Eddie felt like it was both his and Richie's, so close they had no choice but to match pace with one another. He dragged his blunt nails down Richie's back, not as biting with his shirt on but got his point across just as clearly. Richie groaned, but moved back, chest heaving with energy he hadn't even exerted. Not yet anyway. 

"Food," Richie breathed, standing too quickly so that he stumbled. Eddie was considering investing in iron supplements for him. "My blood isn't in my head."

Eddie stood up with him, clocking his own head rush and managing to hide it. "Food," he agreed. "Then we can come back and _try_ to study."

"Hold onto that dream if it gets you hot, babe."

\---

"Where are we  _ going?  _ " Richie demanded, as Eddie dragged him down the hallway of Beverly's dorm building, connected by, like, three fingers, because Richie was a sweaty fucker when he was stressed out, and the combination of finals and the thing with his mom was turning Richie into a ball of stress with glasses. He needed to fucking  _ chill  _ , if Eddie had learned anything from his mistakes, with finals last semester. Seeing his own habits mirrored back to him in Richie really highlighted how much Eddie was actually losing it before, and he hated it. 

"To  _ Beverly's  _ **obviously** ," Eddie groaned, tugging him harder along until they were finally outside of her door, not even waiting to unlock the door and bust inside. 

Bill and Ben were both at work, at  _ Michael's _ , where they decided would be a fun place to get jobs because...Eddie didn't even know why, so they wouldn't be...up to anything if Eddie barged in. He also didn't know why they all had the sudden obsession with working together, if their newfound independence somehow made them miss the daily routines of school so much they sought that somewhere else, he had no idea. What he  _ did  _ know was that Stan applied for a job at Eddie's work, along with another job somewhere else because he had a work ethic like nothing Eddie had ever seen. Mike was doing his work study at the library, but he also squeezed in a part time job at the bookstore that was equidistant from his dorm and their apartment.

"For  _ wha-  _ Oh!" 

They both stopped as they walked into Beverly and Audra's dorm to see...fabric. Everywhere. Like, there was an outfit sitting fully made on Beverly's mannequin that had  _ not  _ been a thing the day before. He'd seen her hurriedly sketching it when they were having lunch with Bev the day before, but he didn't think it would be  _ finished.  _ Let alone finished in a way that would warrant so much fucking muslin and red fabric thrown everywhere. He'd only seen it one other time, and that was when they were studying for the SAT's and that was...hell.

Meanwhile Audra was just laying on her bed, reading the textbook for one of her classes while Beverly was  _ hand sewing  _ whatever she was doing.

"...Beverly...dearest…" Richie said, glancing around the room. "Wh-What's going on here?"

"She's stress sewing," Audra told them, looking up from her book and smiling at them. She'd kind of broken away from them since her and Bill broke up, and Eddie had missed her since. "It's been going all fucking day."

Bev smiled and flipped her off before turning to them, eyes lighting up when she noticed Richie. "Richard."

Richie's face dropped, eyes darting back and forth from Beverly to the dress. The dress which would require a tall...lanky person...to fit into it. 

" _ Bev _ ."

She pasted on her brightest, fakest smile, no lips and all teeth. Then, switched to a pout when Richie didn't budge. " _ Please?  _ For my portfolio! C'mon!"

"I just put these pants on!" He complained, but was still unbuckling his belt and shimmying his pants down his legs. 

Eddie watched proudly for a minute before leaving Richie to it, opening Beverly's desk drawer and rummaging through the stacks of paper to find her pipe. Whenever they actually were going to start smoking, Beverly would have to get her shit from the shelf she kept it on, which Eddie was too short to reach. The two inches in height between them mocked Eddie silently.

"Eds, can you zip me up?" Richie asked, reaching backwards to swat at Eddie and get his attention. Eddie swatted back at him but obliged, zipping up the dress and splaying his hand over Richie's back between his shoulder blades. Richie shivered and smoothed down the dress to cover it, horribly, before pausing. "Did you want me to tuck my dick back before I put this on?"

"No, why?" Richie turned around, the sleek design Beverly rushed to put together, while doing a very good job of it regardless, stretched out around...well...Richie's entire bulge jutting out of it like a fucking buried artifact. 

Richie put his hands on his hips. "Well--"

"Jesus  _ fuck _ \--" Her eyes widened before she shut them, snapping open again, this time trained at the floor next to Richie, literally anywhere else but him and his entire whole dick. "Don't make it weird."

"It's already fucking weird just take the  _ picture _ ." He looked up at the ceiling before landing on Eddie, who was openly staring at his long legs and obvious fucking bulge, biting the inside of his lip so that his arousal wasn't _that_ fucking blatant. 

Beverly nodded and grabbed her camera off of the desk, her disposable one not the polaroid one, and took a picture of Richie, winding it up before taking another one. Almost too quickly, she gave her thumbs up and Eddie turned him around to unzip him again. 

Richie looked at Beverly and Audra over his shoulder. "Stop staring at me before I call the cops."

"Eddie's staring!" Beverly argued. 

"Fuck off! I'm  _ allowed _ ," Eddie said, slipping his hands into Richie's dress, just to feel his skin underneath his fingertips, before stepping back to watch Richie, with the gracefulness of a toddler, shove the dress down his legs and step out of it. Eddie wasn't even high yet and he already knew what part of him was gonna come out full force like a fucking truck. 

"I don't think I want to be high with you two anymore," Bev told them, looking at the both of them. "I think I know exactly what will happen, and I don't like the outcome." 

"Oh please," Richie sighed, putting his sweatpants back on. "Last time you and the other two B cups basically fucked on our dorm floor. We had to  _ peel  _ you apart." 

Before Bev could respond, Bill and Stan pushed into the room with the alcohol they were supposed to be back with fucking  _ hours  _ ago, which shut the conversation down completely, much to Eddie's fucking  rejoicing.

Richie pulled him in so suddenly Eddie jumped, only leaning into the touch when he realized it was him. "I think, honestly, if I showed the whole room my dick right now, they would not remember it tomorrow. If the fucking  _ suitcases  _ of booze Stan is carrying says anything."

"Well,  _ don't _ . We're the only people who need to see your dick. Except for, like, your doctor if necessary."

Richie kissed the side of his head, laughing. "You got it, babe."

\---

The thought of the upcoming end of the year party that Eddie and Richie both said they'd go to could literally not be further from Eddie's mind, as he waded through the sea of boxes and tubs to get to their bed. Richie was probably close behind. Their testing periods were at the same time, but his was in a different building, and a further walk. Eddie would've waited if he wasn't near death, collapsing on his mattress, not even taking his pants off before burrowing under his covers and trying to fall asleep. If he could, he would just melt into the mattress and forget about this stupid fucking party. Like, yeah, getting shitfaced to celebrate being done with freshman year is cool and all, but he already did that when he was fifteen and he didn't  _ need  _ to do it again. Maybe he hated parties. He couldn't even think straight, as his brain fogged with fatigue.

This gentle lull of sleep was  _ destroyed  _ , unsurprisingly, by Richie coming in, but Eddie could tell he was trying to be quiet about it. Before Richie could Hulk him into the fucking wall, Eddie moved on his side for Richie to sneak in, smiling at the sound of his jeans hitting the floor before he climbed in behind him. Eddie sighed as Richie immediately grabbed him and pulled him against his chest, kissing his shoulder. 

"Mornin' Spaghetti." Richie unabashedly breathed him in. "You smell like an office building."

"It's almost noon, and thank you?" Eddie reached back and tangled Richie's fingers with his while Richie kissed his shoulder over and over again. He melted into the feeling, not wanting to sleep to miss it. Or go to a stupid fucking party and leave the warmth of their bed. "Would you hate me if--"

"You totally didn't want to go to that fucking party later?" Richie asked, head perked up to look at Eddie's face. "No, no I fucking wouldn't."

" _ Yes _ . Like, I'm fine with doing a Loser thing--"

"One last sleepover, Stan and Mike already asked us. We're in charge of snacks."

"Great. Glad we had this talk." He shut his eyes and got ready for the most satisfying nap he would ever take. "I think I...hate partying. Parties are fun. Partying...no."

"You just like to be horny at parties, you don't actually like going." Richie was already starting to snore behind him. "But thanks for telling me that."

Eddie slumped against their pillow. "No problem."

\---

Eddie would be lying through his fucking  _ teeth _ , if he didn't admit that leaving their dorm didn't make him a little bit upset. Like, yeah, it was the size of a matchbox with so much shit in it, it was basically impossible to move, but it was their first place that belonged to both of them, which made it significant. It made it fucking  _ more  _ than significant, and three months from now two new freshman dicks were gonna take their places, and not even know the entire fact that Eddie got to live there was a dream come true in and of itself. Assholes. 

They'd moved most of their stuff in their apartment over the course of the week. Once they were mostly packed, Richie, Eddie, and Bev all helped move some of their boxes over to the apartment, since they were allowed to move in a full week before they actually had to move out. They hadn't actually unpacked anything there, it was mostly just so it would be less bulk, but they hadn't packed up everything in their dorms either. After they  _ did  _ pack everything though, Eddie felt a deep well in his chest, like he'd just said goodbye to a part of himself he wouldn't see again.

"You know," Richie muttered, wrapping his arms around Eddie's waist. "Generally, you're supposed to leave once the room is empty."

Eddie sniffed. "I know, I know. I'm just...it was our first, like, apartment, kind of. We didn't have, like, a lot of firsts in this room--"

Richie snorted. "Yeah, you're gonna kill me in ten years when the  _ full  _ realization that you lost your total virginity in a motel bed in Utah."

"You did  _ not  _ fucking tell me we were in Utah," Eddie despaired. "I did not--in  _ Utah. _ "

Richie laughed into his hair so hard his whole body shook. "In-You in U-tah."

Eddie blinked. "I'm now erasing the memory that I've ever had sex with you, thanks! We can go now!"

"Wait, wait, wait," Richie muttered. "We can't leave until  _ everything  _ is out of the room. And I have one more thing…" He turned to his desk to gesture to his, frankly decrepit, Sony D-5 sitting on top, menacing in its silence. 

"Wait, don't play Whitney." Eddie had this whole fucking plan for their anniversary in a little less than two weeks, and it would make it less special if they danced to it now. He had balloons bought already. He'd hidden streamers in rolled up socks. Clean socks, though, so it wasn't gross. "I--I'm reserving it for another time."

"Oh? Sure, then," Richie said, amused, but not asking why. He  _ couldn't  _ be suspicious, Eddie hadn't even mentioned anything. Regardless, he ejected the CD and took his little CD case, which him and Ben decorated with paint markers one time so they had little portraits all over it and their initials and stuff, to take out another CD, skipping each song until One of Us started playing. "Didn't know you could do that."

"R _i_ _ chard  _ ," Eddie laughed at the song as he was swept up in a fucking waltz, Richie's hand firm on his back. "Is that all we are now, to this room?  _ Visitors?  _ "

Eddie spun under Richie's arm while Richie laughed, kissing him once he was close enough to reach. Richie smiled into Eddie's mouth and let him go, putting both hands on his waist while the song faded into the background behind them. Nobody would come to get them for a few more minutes, so Eddie didn't mind, let himself have this one last moment, in their freshman dorm. 

\---

Eddie ducked under the soft inside corner of their size-of-fucking-Jupiter couch, where he'd been helping before all of the tall people had to lift it onto the porch, and then he'd been out of range. Why he offered to help at all was a mystery to him, when he could just stay with his Bill and Beverly, short brothers in arms, and carry in lamps and shit. What Richie was doing with his height Eddie could make up for by sheer strength, but apparently being the size of a skyscraper made up for not having any upper body strength. Well, not  _ no  _ upper body strength. He proved that to Eddie, in more ways than one, over the time they'd known each other, especially since they got together. 

Staring at the house, muted gray plaster on the outside swirled in rough sweeping patterns, the bright green front door adding nothing to its lack of curb appeal, and still being  _ perfect  _ nonetheless. They were going to hang curtains on the inside so you couldn't see literally all of their business, and set up furniture and build shelves and make this their  _ home _ . Eddie could barely contain his frantic excitement pinballing around in his chest cavity. 

It was the perfect day to move in, too. Saturday morning, and traffic was a bitch; Mike almost peeled the roof off of their U-Haul when he went under a low clearance bridge, but they'd made it in one piece, on a late spring day slowly burning into summer, cotton ball shaped clouds blotted against the sky. They couldn't have asked for a better day, and Eddie took the opportunity to stare at Richie's bare sides as long as they were on display. It was hot, humid, and totally uncomfortable, but they had a slew of secondhand window air conditioners, a whole summer in an apartment of their own, and each other. Eddie could deal with the sweat. 

"They have the couch in," Eddie muttered, as Bill and Beverly worked on carrying out their set of wicker chairs they got for their breakfast nook. "Is that the only thing that we don't put together, or do we still have to wait?"

Beverly came hulking out of the truck carrying two lamps like they were candlesticks and she was a crazed Victorian scientist. "We can go in!" She called, just as the rest of them came out to help. 

"It's a house now!" Richie called as he came down the porch steps. "It's not just rooms filled with boxes!" He kissed both Beverly and Eddie on the side of the head as he climbed in the truck, just missing Bill, who avoided it on instinct but then got mad when he realized what happened and Richie didn't try again. 

He came back out, carrying two of the rugs they had in the very back. Eddie wasn't going to focus on it, because the list of stuff they had to do was a mile long and didn't even cover groceries, but Richie wasn't stick skinny anymore? He didn't know what happened, he never really ate any different no matter where they were, and it wasn't enough for Eddie to notice it on him, but his arms were...bigger. Like, his biceps, which were just a result of him having no fat whatsoever, were now... _ not  _ a result of that. Richie was disgusted by the mere thought of exercise, how the fuck did he get those? Why hadn't Eddie  _ noticed  _ . God, he couldn't even think about it, as he forced himself to grab a box he didn't even read the label of, to try and pretend he wasn't thinking only about Richie's arms.

The living room was the couch and a sea of boxes, like Richie said, but Eddie didn't care. Ben and Mike were hauling the TV in now, which they were going to put on the fireplace, the  _ real  _ fireplace, and Eddie could barely stop from laughing at the vintage box tv with all the dials and no remote. Richie said it was  _ retro  _ , Eddie knew it was the only one within budget.

It didn't matter, though. It had hardwood floors, walls, and a roof, with enough room to fit all of them. That was what mattered most.

He looked down at the box in his hands, marked 'BOOKS - FOR FUN', and went into the small room off of their living room, which they were using as an office, and set it on the floor, leaving enough room for them to bring the nice desk in later. He kicked it out of the doorway, knocking into the scientific skeleton Beverly and Richie bought at a retired man's yard sale, named 'Bevitchard McSchlongington Jr.' after his parents. Eddie stared at the thing with pure hatred before leaving the room. 

Stan came in behind him with the cozy armchair they got at an estate sale to put in the room and shoved it into a corner, so whoever sat in it was next to Mr. McSchlongington. Eddie couldn't wait to avoid ever acknowledging his existence for the rest of his life. 

"I'm already over this," Stan told him, huffing with a huge smile on his face. 

Eddie laughed. "Me too," he said, and pulled him into a hug. 

\---

The purple walls, surprisingly, were not as bad as Eddie thought they would be, set against the backdrop of their dark grey bedspread. They put these abstract black and white paintings on the wall, both of them shooting down the idea of covering the wall in pictures, for the amount of tape alone. They had a little bookshelf, which Eddie took great joy in  _ not  _ adding  _ Lolita  _ to, and their huge dresser across from the foot of their bed. It was basically ridiculous for them to have a dresser that huge, but it had this open shelf in it with a mirror and shit, which gave Eddie very specific ideas. A little wicker lounge chair was shoved into the leftover space the wardrobe allowed them, along with their hamper. It was borderline claustrophobic, but it was  _ theirs  _ , and that made it the warmest, most comfortable room in the entire  _ world  _ to him.

"I'm gonna be honest," Richie laughed, pulling Eddie away from hanging up a shirt to fucking suplex him onto the bed. "I don't think I'm going to sleep any farther away from you, even though I have the room to."

Eddie regulated his breathing and heart rate and relaxed against Richie. "Good. I didn't plan on letting you."

"Love you, Spagheds." Richie buried his face in the back of Eddie's neck. 

"I love you too."

"I want that in writing for when that fucking bookshelf falls apart."

Watching Richie put that together was...something. He was perfectly capable of it himself, if he read the directions, but Richie had the unshakable habit of only skimming any directions he saw, attempting to do the task with that information, and then getting frustrated when it didn't work. He did it with everything. Furniture, games, worksheets. Unfortunately, this did nothing but kill any fantasy Eddie had about hot, muscled, construction-worker-looking-lumberjack-ass Richie, but he could live with that. Under no circumstances would he ever roleplay with Richie; he would feel ridiculous and Richie would either not take it seriously or take it  _ way too  _ seriously, and the thought of them trying to actually get anywhere with it just made Eddie laugh. He would take his idiot, who could barely flirt with him except for when it was inconvenient, who couldn't understand how to screw two pieces of wood together, who loved with his whole heart and none of his brain, over beefcake asshole, dressed in a caution vest and nothing else, any day.

Eddie looked at the lamp on their nightstand, with his acid green engagement ring stuck on the bottom, and smiled. "Are you kidding? And have a  _ record  _ that I like you? Never."

\---

As far as Eddie knew, Bill still hadn't come out to his parents, or told them about him being in a relationship with both Ben and Beverly, so how he was going to disguise the fact that he didn't have a room of his own and was staying in theirs, Eddie had no idea. But that was none of his business, just a thought that came to mind, as him and Ben laid next to each other on their huge California King, turned sideways, with their million pillows, that seemed to naturally imply that more than just two people.

He went in there after everybody else left to get pizza, to see how Ben's unpacking was going once his and Richie's was finished, and sort of just laid on the bed and stayed there. There was this fucking ingenious table, skinny and meant to be pushed against a wall in, like, a foyer or behind a couch, pushed against the foot of their bed, but it was tall enough that if you sat on the edge, you could use it as a desk, which Eddie thought was cool as hell. Other than that, it was pretty normal, a dresser, a mirror, a weird, almost psychedelic painting on the wall behind their headboard. 

Ben was lying next to him, picking at a thread on the comforter while he ignored the sound of Eddie's stomach growling. 

"When are you going back?" Eddie asked him, trying to find a smooth inch of plaster on their popcorn ceiling. He tried to ignore the dread of five of them going back right when they finally were able to live together, but he really couldn't. And if everything with Richie's mom went well, Eddie would be the only one with nowhere to go. 

"Uh, a week or two. I have to check the ticket. I wanted to make sure we were all settled here, first, though. With, like, rent and everything." He paused before adding, "And I don't want to move in just to ditch y'all for two weeks. I want to actually live here before I go back to my parents' house." 

"Got it."

Eddie avoided Ben's gaze. "You know, the invitation is still there, if you and Richie want it."

"You know we already agreed we're never going back to Derry. And, after last time--"

"Yeah--"

"There's no way."

"Of course. Sorry."

Eddie rolled on his side to look at Ben, who was still watching him carefully, trying to gauge Eddie's feelings from his side profile. Eddie didn't actually want to know what he was seeing, or interpreting, for the fear it might be something Eddie didn't even know he was feeling. He couldn't even imagine that Ben would be wrong, too perceptive and too honest to ever see somebody incorrectly. 

"Why are you sorry?" Eddie sat up and crossed his legs. "Just because you have a family in Derry doesn't mean it's any easier for you to go back there." His eyes fixated on Ben's shirt, over his scar from what Bowers did to him used to be. It went away when Pennywise died, like it had something to do with him, but Eddie never once forgot what it looked like. He was never exempt from the haunting of that particular wound, though it was a ghost to them now. Even though It was nothing but a ghost to them now.

"Yeah, but at least I  _ can  _ go back there." Ben picked at a scab on his cuticle, batting Eddie's hands away when he tried to get Ben to stop. "Even if I'm with Bill, nobody is even on a wavelength there where they think that's a possibility, 'cause I'm with Beverly, too. No matter what, even though gay people don't have any sort of specific look or whatever, you were always called out and hurt for it--"

"Ben, I will blast you right here for how stupid you sound right now.  _ We  _ got bullied for how we looked, despite there being nothing wrong with us? Dude! Do you  _ hear  _ yourself?"

He shoved at Eddie's knee and laughed. "I hear myself! But the point is, people don't care how I got, like, built, or whatever--"

"Jacked as shit?"

"N _ o.  _ But they don't care. they just see it as this sort of huge success story they had no part in actually contributing to, when really...I just wanted to do something that would look good for my college applications. So, weird old ladies and parents of kids we graduated with stopping me in the street and talking  _ in detail  _ about how being fat somehow equated to me having no future, is uncomfortable, and makes me mad as anything, I won't  _ die  _ . You could die. I don't like knowing that, Edward."

"Well, Benjamin, I don't like knowing about these old ladies stopping you in the street. If anyone does it, bring them home with you and we'll have words."

Ben laughed, sitting up and kissing Eddie's head. "Sure thing. Let's go get plates and shit before everyone gets home." He slid off the bed and stood, groaning when Eddie stood on their bed and jumped on Ben's back while he was fixing his shirt. "Oh!"

"Love you, Ben."

He closed his eyes and wrapped his hand around Eddie's wrists, which were crossed tightly over his shoulders. "Love you too."

\---

For his entire life, Eddie never saw himself as not having a family. When he was younger, it was him, his mom, and his dad. He had a family, so did every kid. But his dad died, and his mother became an obsessive perversion of herself, that Eddie didn't know how to love, or to be loved by, but he'd learned by then that you don't always pick your family, and they don't pick you. He remembered wishing he'd had a  _ different  _ family, but he never disqualified his mom, or his weird cousins from Portland, from that equation altogether. When he was old enough to learn that family wasn't blood, it was love, he had Bill, Richie, and Stan to be his family. And then he had Beverly, Mike, and Ben. He was never without a family. 

Thinking about his mom, about his weird cousins in Portland who Eddie was  _ sure  _ were all, at least, semi-sane, not being his family, made him feel empty. He knew family wasn't blood, he'd  _ known  _ that, but to not be loved for who you were by the people you were supposed to be intrinsically accepted by, still hurt. It actually more than hurt, it felt like someone had taken a melon baller and scooped out his heart, then crushed it with their hand. He wanted a family, he wanted anything in the fucking world to be different just so he could be loved by the people who were supposed to fucking love him.

"Should I try to talk to my mom?" Eddie whispered, hoping Richie didn't even hear him so he wouldn't have to explain, but knowing Richie would anyway. 

"No," Richie answered after a moment. "Why?"

Eddie shrugged, their heavy comforter falling off of his shoulder. "We're all the way out here, if it goes bad--"

"No, why do you  _ want  _ to talk to her. Besides the bare minimum of keeping you alive until you took over that responsibility, what has she  _ ever  _ fucking done for you? And, I'm not trying to shoot your idea down, I promise, if you want this I will be there with you, but...what has she done to deserve your forgiveness? What has she done to deserve  _ you?  _ And don't say childbirth, that doesn't count."

Eddie didn't say a word. "What if...losing me...has changed her? Like, she finally saw the consequences of her actions and she's willing to change, and she can't because she doesn't know how, or  _ where  _ to find me?" He blinked tears out of his eyes. "My mom isn't exactly  _ healthy  _ . What if she dies, and I have all these questions, and she can't answer them? Am I willing to live the rest of my life not knowing any of that? I have, like, an idea as to  _ why  _ she treated me how she did, but I don't actually know the  _ reason  _ . What if I never talk to her again, and then I go crazy because all the shit I want to know about my childhood and my life is just unanswered forever, and there's nothing I can do about it?"

Richie squinted at him, but Eddie couldn't tell if it was because he was confused or because he genuinely could not see Eddie's face without his glasses. Maybe both. Eddie felt like he was about to fade away into nothingness, to open his eyes and have his mere existence blink out of the universe, like he was never here at all. 

"Eddie,  _ what?  _ Is that what you think about all the time?" 

" _ Some  _ of the time, not all the time, but can you blame me? Do you ever wonder about that?"

" _ No!  _ I imagine I'll have a breakdown once that becomes reality for me, but I won't make myself sick with the thought of what questions I may or may not have in the future. That shit will eat you alive." He pulled Eddie closer in his arms and kissed his forehead. "If you want to talk to your mom, that's fine, dude, she's your mom, but you can't ignore that letting her back into your life is opening a window for her to try all that shit from before. But it also might go super well, especially since she's had time to, maybe, think about you as a whole independent person with a life, after she saw us frenching in the street in Derry--"

"Fucking hate when you say frenching, but you're right." He chewed on his bottom lip. "I don't think she would have changed. I  _ want  _ it, I want to think she's different, for the sake of having  _ someone _ , like, blood related to me, but I don't think...she's capable."

"Eds--"

"We can go to sleep now."

"We don't have to if you're still freaking out. We have pizza in the fridge, we can have a slumber party in the living room."

Eddie rolled his eyes. " _ Or  _ we could get up at a normal time tomorrow to go grocery shopping with everyone else. They won't get us shit if we sleep through the alarm," Eddie joked, pushing upwards so he could reach Richie, kissing him gently before leaning back down on his chest.

"We're actually adults now," Richie commented, seemingly in awe of the reality, but also letting Eddie know he didn't miss the abrupt change of subject. 

"You won't be anything for much longer if you keep stopping me from sleeping."

"You started this conversation!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from knock three times by tony orlando and dawn !! 
> 
> idk abt this chapter dude but i hope you enjoy it!!


	12. I look at you and I fantasize

After killing It, all seven of the Losers had dealt with their fair share of nightmares, but Eddie hardly knew what his were enough to call them nightmares at all. Usually they were just weird scenarios that hardly made any sense at all, but when he woke up, he would have such a deep sense of dread from them that he felt nauseous, like they were trying to send him a message, but the content of it was so damaging to him that his mind blocked it from being able to remember what it was when he woke up. He knew that they almost never happened when he was with everybody else, that all seven of them somehow had the ability to stop Eddie from feeling the aftershock of his own dream. But almost never didn't mean he was incapable of getting them, but it was always when he least expected, and they always felt like an eternity had passed by, even if it had only been one night. 

It felt like opening his eyes, like the beginning of a movie starting with no opening credits, and Eddie was standing in the sewers with a...fireplace poker? In his hands? He was covered in  _ something _ , as he felt it dripping from his skin and the ends of his hair, and he could tell he was thirteen again, his body too small to be him now, to be anything but a child, but he was alone there. Silent except for the sound of his stepping on wet rocks, he looked for someone, anyone, rounding the weird little...dead kid artifact museum, but they weren't anywhere Eddie could see them. 

Slowly, like if he took too long he would wake up and this would all be over, he looked up, heart dropping to floor as Eddie saw the rattiest pair of black converse he'd ever seen, worn over bright, mismatched, neon, geometric socks under jeans, a shirt, the ugliest pastel button up shirt to ever be made, and Richie's  _ face  _ on top of all of it. His glasses were broken like someone rammed him in the face, frozen mid-free fall on his face, glass stuck in his cheek below his blank, white eyes. His whole body was frozen, but limp, his untied shoelaces dangling just out of Eddie's reach. 

He reached out to him, to try and wrap his hand around Richie's ankle, pull him down in some way, but he just floated further upwards. Eddie watched in abject terror as Richie rose higher in the sky, out of Eddie's grasp and into the blinding light above them. 

His jaw cracked loudly when he opened it, throat burning as he screamed, "Richie!  _ Richie!  _ Please, no. No, no, no," he tried to climb the large pile of items, but stumbled, everything falling away once he tried to put weight on them. Tears slipped down his face as Richie started fading, getting closer to the light. When Ben pulled Beverly out of the deadlights, he kissed her. Richie was too far away. He slipped down the mountain of shit onto the ground. "Richie...don't leave me here,  _ please _ . You don't belong up there. You belong here, with me. With _me_. Please..." He swallowed, ignoring how it burned, and whispered to himself, having almost lost hope "I love you."

It was that, those words, that made Richie snap out of it. He blinked and looked down to Eddie, but his relief was short lived. His eyes melted from white back to brown, and he started to fall, his body slipping from the deadlights' stillness, hitting the ground with a sickening crack, so loud in Eddie's ears he screamed, tears welling in his eyes, not only from the sight, but the sheer pain that shocked his whole body. It was like him and Richie were connected, even if they had no reason to be. He didn't want to think about what that might mean. 

Richie's body laid broken and empty on the rocks, his neck bent at the wrong angle, bone bulging out of skin. His arm was broken, like Eddie's was, back then, exactly the same way, and his eyes were quickly fading from brown to cloudy blue, like the light in his eyes was bleeding out. He was bleeding,  _ everywhere _ , but Eddie couldn't find a source, he couldn't see anything but his ribs, cracked open from a sharp rock, poking out of his stomach. His jaw was broken, hanging grotesquely off of his face while still being attached, like he'd dropped it and forgotten to pick it back up again. 

Eddie scrambled backwards as Richie heaved himself up on one arm and began crawling towards him, until Eddie fell over and Richie's battered face was on top of him, dripping blood onto his shoulder, his face. He couldn't speak, with his jaw pulled so far apart, but Eddie could hear him. His broken, jilted voice, so cold from anything Eddie has ever known of him. He grabbed Eddie's face, digging his fingers into Eddie's own jaw to the point of pain. 

_ How could I ever love you? You did  _ this  _ to me. Killed all of our friends, all because you were too damn scared of yourself. _

Eddie grabbed at Richie's hand, to try and remove it. He gasped when Richie relented, only to restrict his breathing by wrapping his hand around his throat and squeezing so hard Eddie felt like his windpipe was collapsing. 

_ You're disgusting. A little parasite, hollowed out by pills you could never swallow, drowned by the man you could never be. You beat It, but what does that matter if you're still just a spineless worm, cowering on the earth waiting for somebody to trample you. You're pathetic _ .

The pile of toys, of the last belongings of thousands of dead fucking kids, shifted, and Eddie jumped as an arm leapt out, wincing when his movement caused Richie to dig his nails harder into Eddie's skin. Dark brown skin pulled itself the rest of the way out, ash handprints marring his smoking skin, up his arms and neck, until Eddie saw Mike's face, a dark handprint covering his mouth, but leaving the cattle gun wound in his head otherwise uncovered. 

Richie laughed at the sight of his friends. _You think any of us could ever love you? A useless kid who runs back to his mother the second someone asks you to be a person of your own, instead of relying on everybody else. If it weren't for you, we'd be_ alive _. We'd be happy, if only you weren't such a fucking burden to everyone you ever meet._ He pushed his arm off of Eddie's face to press it onto his neck. _And me? How could_ _I love you? Are you so stupid to think that I, with my whole life ahead of me, would ever stoop down to the fucking likes of you? Even in death, I would never relent myself to such an incompetent, worthless, **filthy**_ _fucking object like you. You're barely even a person, just a pile of thoughts nobody will ever hear and wanting what nobody is ever going to fucking give you. Doesn't it hurt? To know that no matter how hard you try, nobody will ever, **ever** give a shit about you?_

Beverly followed Mike, her skin blazing on fire, cackling as she kicked her way out. She was covered in dried blood, flaking off of her charred skin as the bottom of her dress snagged on the awkwardly placed objects in the pile. Stan was next, his face disfigured like the woman in his painting, as he tore his way out, spider legs protruding through his neck, leaving bloody, open wounds surrounding them. 

Richie's hands tightened on his throat, his world blurring at the edges, until it all went dark.

Eddie woke sitting straight up, tears dripping down his face and sweat covering his whole body.

"Eds," Rich whispered, reaching to touch Eddie's shoulder, but flinching away when Eddie screamed. "Holy shit."

Seeing Richie's face felt like washing ashore after being caught in a hurricane. He could breathe again, pulling Richie into his arms so quickly it hurt and squeezing his eyes shut as tight as he could so he could try to grasp the comfort Richie gave him. His racing heart rate made Eddie feel as though he were about to explode, but he refused to be asleep again. At least, not right then, not without literally plastering himself to Richie. 

Eddie jumped as the door opened and Stan peeked his head in, eyebrows furrowed in concern that helped even out Eddie's breathing. The pool ring they had on their bedroom door rattled as Stan opened it, his eye mask pushed up his forehead as he peeked his head in the room.

"I know you have the sleep ring...thing...on the door, but is everything okay? We heard someone scream."

Richie laughed as his eyebrows jumped. "This time it was something, but usually--"

"I had a nightmare," Eddie explained, to the homicidal face Stan was making at Richie. "I'm okay, though, you can go to bed."

"Good," Stan whispered. "If you need anything, we're here. Love you."

Eddie grinned at him. "Love you."

"Love you, Stanny!"

Stan smiled tiredly and flipped them off. "Fuck you, Rich."

Richie huffed a laugh before sitting behind Eddie and pulling him into his chest, his whole body clambering in a way Eddie would usually complain about, if he didn't need the reminder that this Richie was _real_ and he was actually there this time. His legs bracketed him in on either side. Eddie hummed and curled into him, pulling their comforter up to his shoulders to get rid of the goosebumps covering his skin. He was barely visible at this point, but he didn't care. He didn't necessarily need Richie to examine the fact that his own mind had sent him into a fucking hysterical cold sweat. It wasn't needed.  He was so tired from the panic of his dream that any restfulness he could've gotten from sleep was erased, but he didn't want to go to sleep again, and heighten the chances of experiencing that again; Eddie wanted to wrap himself into their blanket and into Richie's arms until the whole world disappeared and he didn't have to remember any of what just happened. 

"Wanna tell me what that was about?" Richie asked, gently kissing the crown of Eddie's head. "Or not, you don't have to. Do what you want, dude."

"You can't call me dude after I was screaming in my sleep," Eddie muttered, letting the sentence hang in the room for a moment before meekly explaining, "Pennywise shit." He shifted. "You died. You, but you weren't  _ you _ , and you weren't dead? You were just...taunting me...because I told you I loved you. You said I was pathetic, and-and a parasite, pathetic worm, who just runs back to my mom whenever I get one chance at independence, and...asked how you could ever love me, because you had a whole life to live that I would just ruin. And that I was dumb for thinking _anyone_ could love me. I know it isn't true...but your  _ face... _ it was...mangled. And broken. And I never want to see you like that again."

Richie nodded as he processed the entirety of what Eddie told him. "Okay. I  _ do  _ love you, though, you're the best person I've ever met. That I will  **ever** meet. I know nightmares fucking suck and don't really mean anything, but in case your little nerd brain was wondering. You're everything. Just...literally everything. Nothing matters more than you."

The orangey yellow street lamp on the sidewalk outside of their room bathed them in light. Eddie scanned his eyes over the room, like it would disappear if he blinked, and he'd be back in that place, with his butchered friends and his fucked up life, breathing in the sounds of cars slowly rolling down the street, just off of any major road, and the just audible sounds of the house settling around them. He would usually immediately take a shower after a nightmare, but his body felt heavy, his limbs sinking into Richie like he would never be able to lift them again if he tried.

"You're such a sap," Eddie whispered, his eyes shutting of their own accord. "Thank you."

Richie kissed his head again. "No problem, Edster, go back to sleep. Tell dream-me I'll kick his ass if he comes near you."

Eddie snorted. "I will."

\---

Working semi-full time at the grocery store was more tolerable than Eddie thought it would be, but still tiring. If he'd known the last free summer of his life would be in Derry, he would've done... _ something  _ more fun, gone streaking across the football field, savored the moment for a hot minute, something. Waking up before the sun was even up was  _ not  _ the ideal for him, but he'd rather get it out of the way to begin with and have the rest of the day free, than be like Bev and Richie and work in the middle of the night, coming home at the time Eddie is leaving. 

Mike still worked part time at the bookstore, but more days and slightly longer hours. Just enough to keep him as part time so they wouldn't have to pay him more, basically, which they'd all toasted to the irritating quality of when he was telling them about it one night. Bill and Ben seemed to like working at Michael's, considering how often they came home with items off the clearance rack and announced the adoption of weird new hobbies. Bill started crocheting for something to do, and Ben talked about whittling way too much for someone who has never done it before. Eddie was expecting a beginner's kit to enter their home at any point now. 

Beverly and Richie seemed to be doing well at the bar, if the stack of bills Richie brought home told him anything, even if they did stumble home, dead on their feet, at all hours of the morning. Eddie didn't even keep track of their hours anymore, just learned not to freak out when their bedroom door opened at random times and someone crawled in bed next to him, smelling like tropical shampoo and beer, kissing Eddie's cheek and then immediately beginning to snore. He didn't question Richie and Bev leaving in full uniform at random points in the evening, just checked the schedule stuck on their fridge door if it seemed super out of the ordinary, and didn't really think much of it otherwise. It was for the best, honestly, since his and Richie's first anniversary was just around the corner, and Eddie had been in depth planning for something that would either be super over the top, or just the right amount. 

Stan, the smartest of all of them job-wise no doubt, worked in a coffee shop that was technically on USC campus but not affiliated with the school, carefully organizing his schedule so that he didn't work himself into the ground, but also so he made a good amount of money to take care of their basic necessities. He didn't seem to  _ hate  _ his job, even if he did come home sometimes looking like he'd just started the devil in the face and served it a caramel frappe, and Eddie considered that a good thing. As good as food service can get.

Individually, work hadn't been killing any of them. As long as Eddie got enough sleep the night before, he could pretty much work whenever, but the hectic schedules and sudden increase in hours took its toll on all of them. Eddie couldn't actually remember the last time he'd seen Beverly, Ben, and Bill all home at once, and remembering what it felt like to sleep without Richie was starting to get under his skin. Even Mike and Stan seemed...tense, like every one of them were carrying a tray of boulders, and they were waiting for the pebble that broke them. 

Eddie assumed there would be fights, as they all struggled to settle with each other, but he didn't necessarily want or need for there to be...no fights. All the build up that would lead to one, but no come down. They never had trouble with it before, but Eddie summed some of his own things up to never being able to  _ actually  _ express your frustration or vent your feelings to the people in your house, and even though this was his  _ family _ , he still felt weird doing it. What if it made them realize that Eddie was some weird neurotic asshole that they didn't want to live with, instead of the weird neurotic asshole they'd chosen to live with before. 

He thought things would have exploded that night, when Stan tripped over Richie's shoes when he walked through the door, because he hadn't put them in the basket they set out specifically for that, but it hadn't. They all knew that fighting didn't get them anywhere, but they were too emotionally inarticulate to actually have normal fucking conversations, and so it built and built and built. 

Eddie sat against the head of their bed, which didn't have a headboard much to Eddie's distaste, so that it wouldn't bang against the wall when Richie fucked him. Richie, on the other hand, was having a fucking conniption over which shirt would compliment his fifteen minute comedy routine, which he was  _ asked  _ to do to, to open up for some almost-famous guy that Eddie didn't know the name of, and driving Eddie mad as by osmosis. 

"Is this good?" Richie asked, turning around in a grey shirt and jeans. The jeans were the only thing he'd pinned down as an integral part of the look, everything was up to chance. 

"You're gonna sweat through that before we even get there," Eddie answered honestly. 

Richie rolled his eyes and put on shirt number seven, a black Ramones shirt that made him look like a weird punk rock asshole Eddie would let do basically anything he wanted to him. He had on, what looked like, the first pair of Docs ever made, fucking prehistoric Doc Martens is what the fuck he had on, untied and giving Eddie mounting anxiety that he would crack his head open on their bookshelf. 

He spun in a circle to show Eddie, even though he'd absolutely already seen. "Yes?"

"Yeah," Eddie muttered dumbly. "I don't know how you expect me to be able to look at you tonight. I'm  _ basically  _ half hard already."

Richie beamed at him, buckling his belt and pulling his ring out of his shirt. "Stan will murder us in the street if we start making out on the sidewalk like we did last time."

"Don't care." Eddie slid off of their bed and hauled Richie down to kiss him, trying to stave off the heat curling in his stomach enough that he could actually be a fully functioning person for the next hour or two. "Watching you succeed makes you, like, ten times hotter than you normally are. And actually inviting everyone this time? You're lucky I haven't locked you in here."

"I am lucky." Richie held Eddie's waist and swallowed hard. "Promise that if I suck you'll just walk out and never mention it again? Or, like, go back and shut my microphone off so I don't embarrass myself?"

Eddie laughed and kissed him again. He could feel Richie trembling against him. "You're building a whole career on embarrassing yourself, fuckweed, but sure. And when you're famous for it--"

"You'll be a doctor," Richie finished. "So you can get me an Ativan prescription by coercion, and I won't have to rely on you to sort through my bullshit because I'll be off my shit all the time."

"No. I will not. But,  _ when  _ you're famous, and on tour and shit, you'll be rich enough to call me long distance, and I'll fucking  _ be  _ at as many shows as I can."

"On  _ tour _ ," Richie despaired. "God, I haven't been away from you for longer than, like, a week, since we were kids. How the fuck am I gonna do that?"

Eddie rolled his eyes and turned Richie around, shoving him out of their bedroom and into the hallway. He had to go an hour before the rest of them, for a  _ sound check _ , which made Eddie radiate pride with how  _ professional  _ it sounded. 

"You're gonna fucking  _ deal _ , and complain about how much you miss me to your thousands of fans who want to kill me for getting to deal with you every day," Eddie laughed, as they got to the living room. 

The awkward tension hadn't lifted, but it wasn't at the forefront of their minds anymore, either. Stan was picking shoes out of the closet when Eddie passed their bedroom, but everyone else was here, including Beverly, Ben, and Bill, who were piled on top of each other like they'd all returned from separate wars and they were reuniting for the first time. 

"What are we talking about Richie's adoring fans?" Mike asked, eyes transfixed on Ben's hands working his crochet needles like a vice. 

"He's freaking out about going on tour for a career he doesn't even have yet," Eddie explained, plopping down beside Mike as Richie tied his shoes on one of their chairs in front of the fireplace. 

"I don't know how to be alone! I've never  _ been  _ alone. And Eddie is, like, my emotional support boyfriend. I don't know how to freak out without him there. I think I'd just die at that point."

"Oh, so you're being overdramatic," Bev joked, laughing when Richie threw a marker at her. "Relax, dude. I'm going on tour with you at  _ least  _ once in my life, for experience, and we're all gonna have pretty weird ass fucking schedules, except Eddie, Stan, and Mike, for the rest of our lives. And we have a  _ phone _ . Call us, dipshit."

"And if Eddie's ever, like, working late or something, I'm sure one of us isn't and can go to your show, if you want," Mike offered. 

Richie smiled at them. Eddie knew he wasn't going to take them up on their offers every time, he knew Richie could absolutely handle himself if necessary, but if he ever wondered about whether his support system was as solid as he thought, Eddie was going to prove it to him, with the help of their friends. A fraction of the worry lifted from Richie's face, as he took a deep breath and grabbed his keys from the bowl on the table. 

"Thanks, guys. Love you." He kissed Eddie and ran out the front door, already running late. 

"Love you!" They all called as the door slammed closed, rolling their eyes at Richie's idiotic tendency to ever doubt that he was their best friend, before settling into a comfortable silence. Already, the tightly-wound, fragile facade of peace became closer to their actual feelings, and Eddie relaxed into his seat. Stan came into the room and sat on the couch, draping his legs over Eddie and Mike's laps. 

"Is his act good?" Ben asked Eddie, setting his project down. 

Eddie shrugged. "I haven't heard it. Usually he lets me, but this time he was all secretive about it, like he was scared I wouldn't like it. If it's anything like the other ones, I'll probably fucking rupture something, so...tell the bar to have 911 on standby."

Stan snorted. "Noted."

"Oh, and if any of you plan on sleeping tonight, or not being emotionally scarred while you  _ try  _ to sleep, I recommend...ear plugs...or something," Eddie told them, ignoring the blush on his own cheeks. He would much rather avoid telling them altogether, but he was actually concerned that they would murder both him and Richie if he failed to warn them he already had plans to ravage Richie the second they got home. 

Eddie dodged  _ several  _ throw pillows being thrown at him as he ducked out under Stan's legs and back into the hallway into his room, having a finite amount of time to get ready before they had to go. 

\---

Evidently, Eddie was not the expert of knowing who's who in the rising comedy industry, if the packed bar they had to wade through to get to their (reserved) table was anything to guess by. He didn't realize there would this be many people, it was a  _ bar _ , but there was an ever-growing crowd forming around them, and Eddie would not be surprised if Richie was in the bathroom revisiting his Dramamine and saltine lunch for the second time that day. 

"Holy shit," Beverly yelled over the chattering of everyone in the room, setting down a tray of drinks on their table like she worked there. The table was able to hold four people, max, but they'd stolen two chairs from the neighboring table and were currently fighting over who got to have their knees covered and who would have to suffer. "Is Richie going to live long enough to even  _ do  _ his set?"

"He literally has no other choice," Eddie replied. "It's this or we never talk to him again, according to him."

"Dumbass," Stan said, rolling his eyes, but everyone was smiling with him. 

A man in a white shirt and blue jeans burst out of a door behind the bar and jumped on stage, grabbing the microphone and adjusting it so it was at his level. 

"Good evening everyone! Welcome to the Nightshade Bar, I'm your host, Barty, and tonight we have our headliner--"

Bill turned to Eddie and leaned over so he could hear. "Do you know anything about the guy Richie is going on for?"

"Nope." He took a drink of his rum and coke. "I don't actually plan on staying to watch him, either, unless Richie wants to."

Bill, not at all missing that Eddie wanted to get home as quickly as possible for fucking Richie reasons, squinted at him, but didn't say anything else before turning around. 

"--Comedic newcomer, Richie Tozier!"

Eddie practically swooned when Richie walked out on stage, entirely unabashed in his love for watching Richie pursue his dreams and being able to watch as he did it. It was also, for some reason,  _ insanely  _ hot to him. Richie was always himself, whether people wanted him to be or not, but on stage it was like he shifted, from this kid who was overly himself, maybe to conceal how disconcerted he was with his own personality, to this man perfectly confident in himself and everything it was doing. The nervous part of him shut off, and it was just this unstoppable, charming as all fuck, Richie, that Eddie's heart literally  _ beat  _ for him. 

Richie waved at everyone who politely clapped for him when he came out. "So, I moved into my first apartment the other day, and you never know how capable of murder your friends are until you're the one they're about to kill--"

\---

"You know we're probably never going to be alone in this place again, right?" Richie asked as Eddie shoved him through the front door, after having to physically stop himself from blowing Richie in the bathroom of the bar no matter how gross it was. He jumped up and down while ripping off his boots without untying them. "Did you plan this?"

"You know they're going home for two weeks, right?" Eddie ran his hands down the front of Richie's shirt. "And no, but I did tell them they might want to get ear plugs just in case. Apparently they just decided getting food would be better."

"Can't say I blame them." Richie grabbed Eddie's ass, his hands palming over his skin and pushing Eddie further against him. "God, we need to stop doing this. I can't phone fuck you when I'm on tour if Ben is on the line with his mom."

Eddie panted into his mouth. "Don't--Stop talking about Ben and his mom. And going on tour. Fuck touring, I'll fly out one night and you can just fuck me until my flight the next day,  _ shit _ ." He let Richie take his shirt off before pulling out of his hold entirely and walking to their room, dizzy with how fucking turned on he was. 

"Yeah?" Richie asked, watching Eddie fall back on their bed so he could hover over him. "You'd fly out to wherever I am just for a booty call?"

"I hate that you use those _words_." Eddie watched fondly as Richie untied his shoes and slid them off gently shaking with laughter while trying not to ruin the moment. "But yeah, for you. Well, you and your fucking fire hose dick." He stood and pushed Richie down, who scrambled to pull his shirt and jeans off while Eddie shoved his down his legs. " _ God,  _ mostly your fire hose dick. "

Even though they'd been together for almost a year, and Eddie had seen Richie nearly naked a thousand times before (much to his tween gay sorrow), the sight of Richie naked, or getting there, still made his heart race like he'd never seen another human person in this state. It was like a shot of adrenaline to the veins, as he eyed Richie's cock through his boxers, a reminder that Richie wanted him just as much as Eddie wanted Richie. 

"I've never wanted to buy a camera more in my life," Richie commented, sitting on the edge of the bed to pull Eddie in. He smothered Eddie's laugh by kissing him, tugging at Eddie's waistband until he got the hint and pulled them off. Despite the awkward angle, Richie kissed his collarbones, his shoulders, over his pulse point, until Eddie's heart was pounding so fast it was about to burst. He pressed his lips against Eddie's sternum once he stood up straight again, hands inching up his thighs until his fingertips just grazed Eddie's cock, sending a full body shiver through Eddie's body.

"And where, pray fuck, would you get those developed?" Eddie breathed, " _ Without  _ a lawsuit?"

"Don't care," Richie muttered, standing to kiss Eddie again as he wrapped his huge hand around both of them and held them there, staying still just to make Eddie go fucking crazy. "Let the guy developing them see exactly what he'll never have." 

Eddie groaned when Richie swiped his thumb through his own precum and dragged his hands down Eddie's shaft. His brain was turning to pudding. 

"Can you get on the bed, asshole?" Eddie mumbled, barely able to get the words out while Richie brought him to near delirium within seconds. "I didn't plan on everyone leaving, but I do  _ have  _ a plan, y'know."

"Actually?" Richie said, doing as he was told. "You write a script or something? Are you my sexy nurse now after I stage dived at my first ever show?"

"Wh-No! Shut  _ up _ ." He straddled Richie, his skin hot against Eddie's while all the oxygen left the room. "We're not doing that, shush."

"Sorry, Doctor Kaspbrak." He sat up so he could reach Eddie, shuddering when Eddie rocked down against him, gasping into Eddie's mouth when he kissed him. "God, you drive me fucking crazy. Thought I was gonna have to excuse myself halfway through my set and fuck you in the bathroom." 

Eddie could barely think past the thought of Richie's skin on his. "Why didn't you?"

Richie snorted. "Because you'd yell at me for giving you, like, pneumococcal rheumatoid pneumonia or some shit. And I didn't have the  _ supplies _ ." He bucked his hips up into Eddie's as they rolled onto each other. "You were fucking  _ staring  _ at me. Let everyone know exactly who my ring was for without even saying anything."

"Always do." His head fell back to stare at the ceiling when Richie leaned down to rub a circle around Eddie's nipple with his tongue, bucking upwards so his dick was right against Eddie's entrance. Eddie was already leaking between their stomachs, as a loud moan tore from his throat when Richie wrapped his mouth around his nipple and sucked. "Jesus _ shit _ , I need you to fuck me, like,  _ now _ ."

Eddie grabbed the lube from underneath his pillow where he'd stashed it before he left, pouring it onto his hand and slicking Richie's cock up with it. He smiled as Richie whined and collapsed flat on the bed. Eddie didn't stop, though, lining Richie's cock up with his entrance and--

"Woah, woah, woah!" Richie yelled, way too loud for them being the only ones in the room. "Eddie, you didn't prep, like, at  _ all _ ."

"Did it before I left, shut up." He lifted his hips further and sank onto Richie inch by inch, until he finally sat flush against Richie's hips. He felt so  _ full  _ he could cry, stretched out and open, so drunk on his own pleasure he could barely keep his eyes from rolling back in his head. His thoughts were swimming as his breath stuttered, surrounded by the heat radiating from him and Richie and drowning in it. 

Richie's back arched, his body illuminated by the street lamp outside, highlighting all of his features beautifully for Eddie to roam over. He jolted when Eddie ran his hands down his chest, his whole body shaking on the mattress. " _ Shit _ ," he hissed, his fingers digging into Eddie's hip. "F-Fuck."

"You're so articulate."

"Shut up," Richie laughed, thrusting upwards like he couldn't help himself. "Can't believe you fucking prepped without me. Did you even come?" 

Eddie shook his head, eyes squeezed tightly shut. "Wasn't about that. Wanted to get on your dick as soon as I fucking  _ could _ , I didn't want to waste...wanted to come on your cock more than--Shit, right  _ there-- _ m ore than your fingers. Had to make a choice."

"Aw," Richie chuckled condescendingly, putting on that fucking voice that made Eddie's blood rush in his ears. "I could picture it," he told him. "You, laying on our bed, spreading yourself on your own fingers, your face all twisted up because you can't get as deep as my  _ fingers  _ can, let alone my dick. Your hair was probably all stuck to your forehead, while you prayed to god nobody heard you whining like a whore while you fucked yourself."

Eddie gasped and moaned. " _ Richie _ ." 

"Oh, I bet you came out to leave and they all could see on your  _ face  _ what you were doing in there. Probably not surprised, either, with how desperate you are for it. I'm surprised you can function without my cock in you, down your throat or otherwise." He thrust upwards sharply, nailing Eddie's prostate and laughing when Eddie wailed. 

"M-more," Eddie cried, falling forward but catching himself on his hands. He breathed in Richie's cologne and his shampoo and-- "Oh my god, Richie."

Richie planted his feet and fucked up into him, impaling Eddie onto his cock. Eddie was basically gone at this point already, having sat in a state of constant arousal from before Richie even left the house until now. Richie's chest flushed the closer he got, until he stopped altogether to sit up and kiss Eddie, burying his fingers in his hair as he licked Eddie's bottom lip. 

"It's not normal to be this fucking turned on," Eddie panted. He lifted himself up on Richie's cock and sank back down. Richie smirked fondly, but didn't answer, wrapping his mouth back around Eddie's nipple while Eddie bounced himself on Richie's cock. Eddie whined and tugged at Richie's hair, beaming when Richie's mouth dropped open and he cried out against Eddie's skin. 

"You're always this turned on. Should start having you stay open for me to fuck you all the time, so I can just bend you over whenever I wanted. Might stop you from being such a cockslut, but I doubt it. You'd probably want it even more once you knew I'd always give it to you, just waiting for me to get home from work every day so I can fuck you right when I see you. I know you'd let me, too, wouldn't you?" Richie muttered, grabbing Eddie's hips and rolling up to meet him, nailing his sweet spot over and over until Eddie saw stars. "Shit, shit,  _ fuck _ ."

"Oh my  _ god _ ." Eddie  _ screamed  _ when Richie wrapped his hand around his dick, thumbing over the head before sliding over his entire length, basically fucking his hand around Eddie the way Eddie was around Richie. 

"Would you want that? Just keep you gagged on my cock all day until your jaw hurt, 'til you couldn't even talk anymore, because of how stretched out you were, and you wouldn't even care because I'd be giving you exactly what you wanted." Eddie sobbed when Richie squeezed his dick to highlight his point. "And I would just let you sit there and hold it in your mouth, and when you couldn't even think anymore is when I'd fuck you. Lay you out and just...fuck you however I wanted, and you'd let me because you're such a slut you don't care which way you get it, do you?"

"F _ uck _ , no, I don't Richie, don't you dare fucking stop. Richie,  _ shit.  _ I'm so fucking cl-- _ ose _ ."

"Me too--" Richie groaned, his mouth dropping open as Eddie came on his cock, covering Richie's hand in come while he clenched around him. 

Eddie's head spun out of reality, like he was processing his surroundings at half speed while Richie continued fucking him, his brain fuzzing at the pleasure-pain of oversensitivity. He sobbed when Richie stuck his fingers in Eddie's open mouth, making him lick his own come from his hand. Eddie gagged around them when Richie hit his prostate again, a mix of come and his own drool dripping down the corners of his mouth. Richie didn't seem to mind, fucking hard into him again before slamming into his orgasm, filling Eddie with his come until Eddie could feel it leak out of him. 

" _ Shit _ ," Richie said, rolling his hips again before gingerly pulling out, frowning when Eddie hissed. 

"Yeah," Eddie agreed, collapsing to the side of Richie and laying next to him. "Holy fuck."

"You  _ prepped  _ before you even left." He was heaving so severely he looked like he might die right then and there, but he still had time to taunt him for that. 

Eddie's cock twitched. "Shut the fuck  _ up _ ," Edie smiled against his neck. "You said enough on the subject, and if I get hard again I'll literally kill you and then myself, fuckweed."

Richie snickered to himself, quietly like they weren't in a silent room, like Eddie couldn't still hear him. "Noted. Wanna take a shower with me?"

"I'm not fucking taking one by myself," Eddie muttered, watching Richie check to see if anyone was home. 

"Coast clear, let's go." 

Being in their hallway naked somehow felt more revealing than fucking in their own bedroom, but Eddie still followed, ignoring the trembling in his legs as they walked to the bathroom. 

\---

If Eddie had to choose a way for Richie to make first contact with his mom, he would probably recommend a letter, that one of them would write so Went wouldn't recognize the handwriting, but Richie was as impatient as he'd always been, as he sat at the foot of Beverly's chair while she waited for someone to pick up Richie's house phone. 

Richie shot down the letter idea the day after Eddie suggested it. If his dad wasn't going to blink at the idea of beating his own son, low level mail fraud really didn't seem like it would intimidate him. Besides, Richie could know where a call was going from beginning to end. If he sent a letter out into the world, he wouldn't even know if his mother got it or not, let alone if she'd taken him up on the offer. 

"I don't want my dad to open the letter, either, and blame my mom for  _ provoking  _ me, or thinking it was okay to talk to her, and then have him...hurt her. Is it...bad that I still care?"

Eddie set down the joint they'd been smoking, in the ceramic ashtray sitting between them on the picnic blanket. One advantage of having your own apartment was, not only having a yard, but also a fence, so you could smoke outside without getting the campus cops shouting at you. Eddie looked up at the blank night sky, barely a star in sight. The air around him felt heavier than his body did, like he was wading through corn syrup. 

"Of course it isn't," Eddie whispered. "She's your fucking mom, Rich. And you're...kind...you don't hate people for the sake of hating them. It takes a lot."

"...I don't think I can hate my dad yet," Richie admitted. "I just...it's harder than it looks, to let what he did, which fucking  _ sucked _ \--"

Eddie scoffed. "No shit."

"--completely kill the fact that he's my dad, and that I did...maybe  _ do _ , love him still. Like, he took care of me for all those years, he was my  _ dad _ , and he loved me, he just...sucks. It's like he's two entirely different fucking people, and my...me coming out, brought out the second person, and that dude's been in control ever since. I hate  _ that  _ guy, but...my dad? I can't, like, force the two people into one. They're so different."

"I get that," Eddie said, though he didn't entirely. His mother had her moments, rare ones, that Eddie thought about sometimes, but, at her core, she was the person who abused him and manipulated him for years, trapping him into the role of the dependent, overgrown infant, who only could only learn through experience when he was doing it behind her back, and nothing Eddie could dredge up from his childhood would change that. "Whatever you want to do, I'll help." 

He covered his face with his hands. "I just...I don't want this to have never happened, because I have you, and I can  _ be  _ me, but...I wish it happened literally any other way that didn't hurt. I want my parents back. And, and not my before parents, I want fucking…'I love my stupid fucking gay kid' parents'-- And my mom is  _ trying  _ to give me that, but I still haven't called her back, and I can't sit here and ignore her literal  _ offer  _ to give me love, and then complain that I want it. I can have it! Why can't I get it? Why can't I call her and get it?"

"You  _ can _ . You wouldn't be making plans to try and talk to her if you couldn't fucking talk to her." He watched Richie take another hit, maybe not the best idea, but he didn't argue. "I'm  _ beyond  _ proud of you, too, for doing it. No matter how it goes, I'm gonna be here. Like a little parasite."

Richie rolled onto his side so he could kiss Eddie, flopping onto his back like Eddie had taken all of the air from his lungs. "Not a parasite. You're the coolest husband ever."

Eddie laughed and tangled their fingers together, kissing Richie's knuckles. "I learn from the best."

\---

The stiff tension from before had melted away with Richie's set, everything returning to normal when Stan thanked Richie for putting his shoes in the basket, handing him and Eddie their food, and thanking everything in him, out loud, that they got home late enough to miss their  _ proclivities.  _ Eddie barely even considered throwing himself off of a cliff when he said it, growing into his place in their home and accepting the inevitable embarrassing situations he would deal with as a result, and welcoming them. They ate their food in the living room with everyone else, while they argued over what to watch on TV. 

It was two days after Richie's set that he decided to call his mom, tearing himself, Eddie, and Beverly out of bed at five in the morning to enact the plan they spent twenty minutes,  _ tops _ , going over. Eddie was barely wearing clothes, one of Richie's shirts on backwards while Richie wore only his underwear and...socks? He didn't go to sleep with socks on?

"Is it ringing?" Richie whispered, batting at Beverly's hands when she swatted at him. Eddie watched from his spot on the couch, where he'd been anxiously bouncing his leg up and down for the past twenty minutes while Richie tried to convince Beverly this wasn't stupid, and Beverly tried to convince Richie she could  _ totally  _ pull off a telemarketer voice (she couldn't). 

"Yes, shut the fuck up," Beverly hissed. Almost like she'd been shocked, she jumped when the clicking of someone picking up the found sounded, rolling her eyes when Richie pressed his face against the back of the phone. "Hello?"

Eddie couldn't hear what Mrs. Tozier said on the phone, but he knew it was her. Her voice was too unmistakable to be recognized as anything else, from days when Eddie would escape to Richie's house to get away from his mom, and she would chastise them for staying up too late, but without the harsh insistence Sonia did, and generally being the mother Eddie always wanted. Then, last February happened, and Eddie let those memories die with his respect. Rebuilding those memories, that respect, would be interesting. 

"Is this MARGARET TOZIER," Beverly deadpanned into the phone, squaring her shoulders like Richie's mom was supposed to actually think she was a robot. Richie's mom said something, and Beverly gave Richie a thumbs up while they flailed in excitement for a split second before straightening themselves again. "Perfect. Are you alone?"

"That's creepy as fuck, Bev," Richie mumbled. He rolled his eyes when Beverly put her fingers over her lips to shh him. 

"You are? Okay. Perfect. I don't know if you remember me, but it's Beverly Marsh, Richie's fri--No, he's fine! He's perfectly fine. He, uh, he wanted to know if you wanted to...talk to him? He doesn't want to put you in danger, and so he asked me to call, so that if Mr. Tozier picked up, he wouldn't recognize me, and he...basically he wants you to, like, give us a time to call you when he won't be home, or something, or you could even come here if you want--"

Richie left Beverly's side as she rattled off their address, crawling onto the couch and into Eddie's lap, like a weird, long cat. Eddie laughed at him, running his hands through Richie's hair. Beverly repeated their address one more time before Richie's mom said something else, and the phone clicked. Beverly put it back on the hook and looked over at them, confused. 

"She said she'd get back to us as soon as she could? I don't know what that means."

"I'm gonna throw up," Richie told them, his skin pale and shining with sweat. "I'm...no, I won't. I won't."

" _ I'm  _ going back to bed," Beverly groaned as she sat up, kissing Richie's forehead as she left. "Good luck, Rich."

"Thanks, Molly."

\---

Being, technically, the closest room to the living room had its occasional advantages, such as having a head start to claim seats on the couch, being able to get to the kitchen that much faster, shit like that. One  _ disadvantage _ , however, was that they were closest to the front door, and every single person that so much as blew  _ air  _ on the thing felt like it was rattling it off of its hinges, and that became the soundtrack for Eddie and Richie's life whenever Bill, habitually, forgot his key, or the overly enthusiastic troop of Jehova's Witnesses came knocking in the middle of the day to give them pamphlets, which they kept. They'd been talking about buying a fire pit for the yard, and they looked like they would make perfect kindling. 

The soundtrack of their lives was currently stuck at the Mysterious, Insistent but Kind Knocking at Midnight bonus track, as Eddie shoved his legs into his sweatpants and a sweatshirt to go answer the door. He hoped it was someone important, like...a person who needed to use their phone to call an ambulance or something, and not a weird guy telling them the herd of plastic flamingos they had in their yard brought the property value of the entire block down. 

Their living room smelled like Stan's raspberry lemonade candles and the smoky air of them being blown out, as Eddie looked through their peephole to see who disrupted his after-a-double-shift coma. He smacked his hand over his mouth in shock, as Richie's mom continued knocking, looking around the block, then down at a piece of paper. 

"One second!" Eddie called, trying to make his voice deeper than it actually was, then slapping his hands over his eyes. She was here to see Richie,  _ why  _ would he have to pretend to be somebody else?  _ God _ . He ran to his and Richie's room and shook Richie awake, from where he'd starfished out on the bed in Eddie's absence. Greedy asshole. 

"Hh? Wh? What's wrong?" Richie grumbled, his voice rough with sleep as he reached over to their nightstand, fumbling to get his glasses and shove them on his face. "Is somebody robbing the place? What's happening? Are you okay?"

Eddie nodded. "I'm fine, everyone's fine, just...your mom is here?"

Richie's face lost any sign of fatigue instantly. "What?"

"Your! Mom! Is! Here!" Eddie hissed, rounding their bed to go to their dresser and rummage through it, throwing a pair of pants and a T-shirt at him. "Get dressed! I left her out on the porch like a dick!"

"Shit, Eddie, okay!" Richie put his clothes on as fast as he could and ran outside, Eddie following close behind. "Did you not want her to know we were awake, or something?" Richie laughed, turning on the living room light. 

Eddie watched in an almost night terror like fear as Richie took a deep breath and opened the front door, his whole body going stiff once he saw his mom, like he expected her to have run away by now, or for her to never have been there at all. Eddie sat in the corner of the couch, so he could see Richie's mom's face, bright and teary, as she pulled Richie in for a hug. 

"Hey, mom," Richie muttered, wrapping his pipecleaner body around hers. For as tall as Richie was, he still looked every inch like his mother, delicate features and haphazard curly hair, same smile and lanky frame. If Maggie had glasses, which she used to, but had switched them out for contacts in college, as she explained to Eddie when he asked where Richie's blindness had come from, they would look almost the exact same. 

" _ Richie,  _ she breathed, squeezing his waist as she swayed them back and forth. "I'm so  _ sorry _ ."

Richie looked like he was about to collapse. "Do, do you want to come in? Why are you here? I thought you were just gonna call us tomorrow?"

She stared at the ground. "I know...but I didn't want to call you, and have to hang up when your father came home, and have to hide that I was talking to you, because you're my  _ son _ , and so...I left. I took everything, and I left."

"Left, like, left left? Like you're breaking up with dad, left?" 

Eddie swore he was going to pass out when she nodded, picking at her nails. Eddie saw Richie dealing with what happened between him and his dad for over a year now, but he always thought Maggie either silently agreed, or just stayed silent while she picked her husband over her kid. It never actually occurred to him until she called that she'd pick Richie, and it never actually hit him until now that she  _ knew  _ she couldn't have them both. Maggie was smart, it was never a question of her intelligence, just her common sense, her strength to pick what was right and leave behind the rest, even if it meant leaving everything she'd known before. Apparently, Richie and her weren't as different as Eddie thought. He was glad for it.

Maggie came into the house when Richie welcomed her, face frozen as he shared Eddie's surprise. "I emptied out my accounts today, took your college funds, clothes, pictures, bought a plane ticket and came out here," she explained. "I-I plan on living with your Aunt Sam until I can find a place, and  _ where  _ I find a place all depends on...how close you want me to be. It's all up to you."

Richie nodded slowly, processing the information. "O-Okay, but...uhm, I'm still gay. You know that, right? Like, leaving dad is a huge fucking thing, but...I don't want your reason for doing that to be, oh, you come here and I see you trying so I'm not gay anymore. I'm not picking, like, you or Eddie...or you over me being who I actually am. You...kind of have to deal with that if you want to keep me in your life…"

Eddie stayed as still as he could, praying he disappeared if only he didn't move. He felt like he shouldn't  _ be  _ there, but he still wanted to be, for Richie. He smiled when Richie left the room and brought back water for her, offering her one of the wicker chairs to sit on. She smiled at Eddie when she saw him, but didn't say anything before turning back to Richie, who sat on the couch right next to her. 

"I know you're gay, Richie," Maggie whispered. "I think...I had always known, in some way. You were a...flamboyant...kid, not that that necessarily means that, but you had so much  _ energy  _ all the time, and you were constantly hopping from one obsession to the next, I just thought...maybe you were too focused on everything else, you didn't really have time to worry about things like that. I wasn't going to make that a problem for you if you weren't ready to think about it...and I assumed you'd tell me one day, if there was anything to tell me. 

"Before...before you could, though, your  _ dad _ , he started...noticing things. For someone who's climbing around people's mouths all the time, he really didn't know the right time to stick a foot in his. You were in middle school when he started...getting concerned, and it wasn't  _ ever  _ as bad as it ended up turning out, but I didn't know what to  _ do _ . I knew I'd love you no matter what, so I had to...try and convince him you were 'normal'." She made air quotes with her fingers. "And he believed me. He saw all your friends, and  _ they  _ were all pretty 'normal'." Air quotes again. "But I don't think he ever got over that resentment." She looked at Richie carefully, like she was asking for permission to do so. "His need to be the  _ perfect  _ family, in his eyes, outweighed his responsibility to love you, and I was so focused on trying to convince him you were okay that I didn't even  _ see  _ that."

Richie raised his eyebrows. "You never noticed that Dad was an obsessive perfectionist? Like, to almost an asshole-ish extent if he got mad enough at you to care?"

"He went wherever you asked him to! Joked with you, did what he was supposed to, helped me keep a roof over our heads. He knew you were  _ different _ , but he just thought it was because you loved video games more than sports and...and that was never a bad thing! I thought that him...not condemning you for your differences...meant something other than what it meant. That, that he'd gotten over all of that, and realized that loving you was the only right thing to do. We had the coolest kid in the  _ world _ , I thought he knew that nothing would change that." She wiped her eyes on her coat sleeve, which she hadn't taken off. 

"And all that time I just...waited...for you to just  _ say  _ it, say something. You were always so headstrong, even if it meant being hard headed, and you argued like it was life or death, whether it was about...chocolate milk...or being who you actually wanted to be, or...what you wanted to do with your life. Even if it meant buying you a pair of glasses, what felt like, every other week, because someone broke yours. I thought...your father would see...that he was wrong. But I was wrong. You...you were about thirteen, I think. And, you were...fine! You went out with your friends, always on your bike, you were getting so tall I was about to just buy you spandex clothes so I wouldn't have to keep spending hundreds of dollars at Merry-Go-Round every month, it all seemed...like you were just a normal kid."

Richie looked at Eddie there, without needing to say what he was thinking. 

"But then, that summer, you...were gone. It was like you left, and that kid I loved--he was still there, but part of him had packed up and moved into the attic, started paying rent so he wouldn't have to be our kid, just our tenant. You closed up, and I had no idea why. You started screaming in your sleep, or--or you wouldn't sleep at all, and you'd just...sit. You'd sit in the living room, every night,  _ all  _ night, with all the lights in the house turned on. And you wouldn't make any noise, you weren't  _ with  _ anybody. You'd just stare."

Richie avoided looking at both her and Eddie. He never told Eddie about that, any of it, but Eddie always remembered Richie coming over and looking like shit, passing out on the hammock in the clubhouse like he hadn't slept in days. He would sleep in class, at the park, in Ben's kitchen once, always sleeping during the day, even though he told them he'd slept the whole night. 

Richie's mom kept going, recalling something so deep in her memory Eddie wasn't sure she ever planned on saying it, "There was a time I thought you'd stopped, that you'd sleep, but when I went into your room to check on you, you weren't there. You'd never done that before--"

"I remember," Richie told her quietly. "You chewed my  _ ass  _ out, about how I was gonna get  _ kidnapped _ ."

"I was scared!" She argued, blinking tears from her light brown eyes. "You never did that before! Or, not that I  _ knew  _ of. And, and I didn't even want to ask where you actually were--"

"Eddie's. Most of the time I snuck out, I was at Eddie's."

She nodded. "You were already so far away from me, I didn't want to ask the wrong questions, say the wrong thing, and...have you disappear. But you got better...sort of. You were going out with your friends again, Eddie came over almost every day, you went back to the same kid you were before, even if you were a little closed off. You were  _ you _ . And, you...and...and Eddie. It was like he was the only person who could...let you breathe again. And I guess your father just didn't want to see it, and I understood that he had reservations, but I  _ never  _ thought he would hurt you." She mirrored Richie as they sat, facing each other, but with their knees brought to their own chests. "But then he  _ did _ ." 

"He did," Richie choked out, his voice hard and difficult. He always complained about his throat hurting right before he was about to cry, and Eddie could just  _ hear  _ it now, the stiffness in his tone. 

"I didn't know what to do. He, he was my best friend, the man I'd chosen to be with, and he looked at you and he  _ hurt  _ you. And then you were gone, you were always out, and I thanked God, because if he...laid a hand on you again, I was certain I was going to kill him. But it  _ killed  _ me, to see you in town. At the arcade, the park. I started scheduling appointments so that my day ended early, and I would drive by the school just to see if you'd gone that day, if you were okay." She wiped her eyes and huffed. "I basically stalked you, if you want to believe that."

"For your sake and dignity, I really don't," Richie laughed, which just made Maggie cry  _ more _ , inhaling the details of Richie's laughter so she could hold them in her chest. Eddie got up from his corner seat without a word to sit closer to Richie, for moral support. Whether he was giving or receiving it though, Eddie couldn't tell. Probably both.

"Then your father went back to normal. He was the same man I always knew, except, if I mentioned you...he'd...he would--" She buried her face in her knees and sobbed, and Eddie watched Richie's fists clench from where he held himself in his tight curl. The muscles of his jaw tightened, his expression so full of rage Eddie felt like he should move backwards. What Richie could do to his father from California, he had no idea, but he knew Richie would definitely try. "And then I didn't  _ want  _ you to come home, and be there. In that."

"Why are you telling me all of this?" Richie sniffed. "You still watched it the first time. You watched him beat the shit out of me and you didn't do anything! He threw a picture frame at my fucking  _ head _ , and you didn't try to stop him, at  _ all!  _ And then he did it again!"

"I didn't know how to stop him the first time," she whispered, so quietly Eddie could barely hear her. "He never acted like that towards me, in all the years we'd been married, and I was just so...in shock...I guess. Then, when you left, he told me that if you ever came back and said 'shit like that again', that he'd…" She buried her head in her arms. "He said he would kill you. He told me that if I tried to stop him, or call the police, he would kill us both, and we'd be dead before anybody even got there. I...had already lost you. Over Christmas, I was so scared, because I knew if I did as I was told, he would stop, especially because you...you were fighting back, and he was losing steam, but if I called someone or tried to...stop him...it would... _ provoke  _ him.

"He made me clean your blood off of the kitchen floor. I spent the whole rest of the night throwing up."

Richie snorted. "Thanks for that gene, by the way." He picked at the skin around his fingernails. "I'm sorry he made you do that."

"Don't  _ ever  _ be sorry, when you are not the one who should be." She unfurled herself to sit normally on the chair, crossing her legs at the ankles. "I was going to try and talk to you  _ after  _ I'd left your father, but I just...I missed you so much...and your birthday passed again in March, and he started throwing away photos of you...I couldn't take it anymore. To not only push you away from me, and make me  _ complicit  _ in driving you away, but to...try and erase any memory of you...our  _ son _ . Our bright, funny, sweet, too kind for his own good kid. So I picked you. I  _ always  _ will. You're the best thing I've ever made." She laughed. "Even if I do make giving fillings look hot."

"The fact that your comedic timing is not only  _ inherited _ , but also that yours  _ sucks _ , really says something," Eddie said to Richie. His heart thumped heavily in his chest when Richie looked at him, for the first time in what felt like  _ hours _ . The love of his fucking life. 

"Fuck you," Richie laughed, shoving Eddie, soft enough that it didn't hurt, but hard enough that he collapsed into the couch cushions. He turned back to his mom while Eddie was trying to sit upright again. "Does dad know you left?"

"I imagine he does by now. I didn't leave a note, just a picture, of me and you. He's the fucking devil, but he's not stupid. He'll know what it means." She stood up and kissed Richie's head. "I should have left that piece of shit town long ago, taken you and fucking ran. I'm so sorry I didn't."

"You're fine," Richie promised. "That piece of shit town gave me Eddie, and all of my friends." He stopped for a moment before looking right at her. "If you want to be in my life, though, you're...gonna have to full-love me. You can't just say you're cool with me being gay, and then never acknowledge it and pretend it doesn't exist. That goes for Aunt Sam, too, and all of our family. You bat for me or you're out."

She shook her head. "Sports references are not your range, Richie. But I know--"

"No, like, I'm serious." He pulled his ring out from beneath his shirt, but didn't mention it, let it speak for itself. Maggie raised her eyebrows but didn't comment on it, probably more shocked than anything else. "I've never seen Eddie back  _ down  _ from fighting for me, except for that one time when we were getting chased by that fucker in his pickup truck--"

Maggie's eyes bugged out of her  _ head _ . " _ What?  _ "

"He has never once left me, and the only way I'm leaving him is when he inevitably kills me in my sleep for snoring too loud and keeping him up for two months straight--"

"A-fucking-men to that," Eddie muttered, trying his fucking hardest not to cry at Richie's words, his dedication to them and their future above anything else. 

"But besides that, it's me, and me and him, or nothing. You don't get me without him. I'm...not me, without him."

"I know that.  _ God _ , I've  _ known  _ that, and I don't plan to avoid it anymore. I haven't defended you as much as I should have in the past, and I'm done. I refuse to let you down like that again." She kissed his head. "Besides, Eddie was always my favorite."

Richie beamed at her like he couldn't believe what she was saying, grabbing Eddie's hand and clasping it between both of his. "Mine too."

\---

Eddie stood, nearly packed into the wall of the front door, as the five biggest assholes in the world tried to watch Richie and his mom talk on the sidewalk from the window in their front door. The window in their front door with...frosted glass. Bill was literally going to break a rib if he tried to get any closer, but Eddie really couldn't blame him. 

Richie and his mom were still talking by the time Eddie went back to bed, kissing Richie a  _ little  _ longer than necessary just to prove that he wasn't going anywhere, because he had work in the morning and he really wasn't a key part of the conversation they were having. By the time he woke up, though, everyone seemed to realize what was going on, lining up behind Eddie to watch them leave, compromising the structural integrity of his skeleton and generally killing off his brain cells the longer he tried to look through opaque glass. 

"Why was she  _ here? _ " Stan asked, the quiet but firm anger in his voice, like the smooth blade of a knife. 

"She's leaving Went," Eddie breathed, his heart thudding in his chest as he said it. 

Beverly gasped. "No fucking way."

Eddie nodded, even as his forehead knocked against the glass. "She  _ said so _ . I'm so fucking happy I could bawl."

Bill gagged behind him and tried to shove him out of the way so he could see Richie's mom's car drive off. "Ew, don't talk about your balls with us."

Before Eddie could say anything to  _ that _ , Richie was bounding up their front steps and they were all spreading apart so they could pretend they weren't just doing what they were absolutely just doing. Richie came in the room and laughed, doing a little dance that made Eddie laugh, from where he stood in front of the front door still. They could all have excuses for what they were doing, but Eddie was brazen in his stalking tendencies, and he was also Richie's fucking future husband. He could do whatever the fuck he wanted.

Unphased in Eddie's openness, Richie pulled him into a hug, kissing the side of his head. Eddie grinned into his shoulder when Richie swayed them in a circle, forcing himself not to laugh as he saw everyone else physically straining to stay in place when it was such a  _ perfect  _ moment for a group hug. 

Richie bit on the tip of Eddie's ear. "Think we should let them in on this?"

Eddie did laugh that time, gripping Richie's waist, the frailty of his gangling frame in contrast with the resilience of his person, all in Eddie's hands. "If you insi-- _ ist _ ."

He could barely finish before Stan was slamming into them, followed by everyone else so quickly he couldn't even tell who was who, the familiar clash of their bodies against Eddie's fucking bone marrow, pressed together like interlocked hands, like this is how they were always meant to be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from hungry eyes by eric carmen
> 
> also i didn't edit this so it probs has a ton of problems buT bear with me 
> 
> also richie's relationship w his mom is based almost directly on what i would have want to have happened in my own life so please don't hate on how it goes down this is wish fulfillment first and FOREMOST (tumblr @sunflowersocialist)


	13. i hope you have all you've dreamed of

The weight of the unrelenting work day sat heavily on both Eddie's shoulders and his lumbar spine, as he pushed through their bedroom door to find Richie lying in bed, his head pressed into their pillow as he laid on his stomach, his arms shoved underneath his body. At first, he thought he was just sleeping, until he noticed Richie was panting, his hand shooting out of their blankets to grip their sheets above him. His hips rolled into his own contact, a quiet throaty noise muffled into the pillow, totally unheard by someone passing in their hallway, but fucking deafening in Eddie's ears. 

Logically, Eddie didn't assume Richie _stopped_ jacking off once they got together, and this isn't even the first time he's walked in on it happening, but there was something so fucking breathtaking about the way Richie moved. 

Eddie always assumed he looked like he was having some weird seismic conniption when he did it, just some weird kid with a hand wrapped around his own dick and weird images of his own best friend's, like, collarbone, or the corner of his smile, the flex of his arms around Eddie's waist when he would _relentlessly_ picked him up in high school, making noises like he'd been stabbed until he came over his own fingers. It wasn't...sensual...in anyway...it was a fucking coping mechanism so he wouldn't come in his own pants like a dumbass when Richie batted his eyelashes at him or pinched his face. 

The few times he'd walked in on Richie, though, made Eddie understand while people got addicted to porn. His body was a jumbled tangle of sharp angles and smooth lines, usually bumbling and awkward on a good day, but lacked the same sense of hesitance here. He knew exactly what he was doing, where Eddie sometimes fumbled, was still learning just how to pick Richie apart, probably always would be, and it lit every fucking nerve ending Eddie had on _fire_. He could only imagine what hyperactive, constantly horny Richie did _before_ they got together, how many of his thoughts he actually got around to sharing with Eddie, and how many he still was keeping hidden. Whatever it was, Eddie would probably indulge him, at least once, as long as neither of them would literally fucking die. 

"Ed _die_ ," Richie groaned, around a moan he buried in the pillow again. 

The man in question dropped his bag on the floor loudly so Richie would hear it, forgetting for a moment that it could be literally any of the six people they shared a house with, and therefore yelling when Richie did as he tore the comforter further around his body, and flipped to look at who just made his dick just invert itself inside of his body. 

"Oh my god! E _dward!_ " His voice was rough from his arousal, and Eddie's entire body was practically vibrating with the need to get out of his fucking work shirt and into their bed. "You scared the shit out of me."

"You know, shouting right after I walk in makes it, like, _super_ obvious what you were doing in here," Eddie said, pushing his pants down his legs after barely opening his belt. "Speaking of…" He pulled his shirt over his head and threw it on the chair in the corner. "You can get back to it if you want. I'll just...be right here."

Richie's eyes widened as his face flushed when Eddie pulled up the covers and slid into their bed, but didn't touch him. He swallowed loudly and sat against their headboard, his dick hard and leaking against his stomach. 

"Like, actually?"

Eddie blinked out of it in order to actually look Richie in the eyes. "Richie, I've literally _been_ hard since you told your mom that you wouldn't take her back unless she took me, too. It really fed into my territorial bullshit." He moved to sit between Richie's legs, running his hands through the coarse hair on Richie's thighs. "Yeah, actually."

"Oh?" Richie asked. "I noticed, actually, how I said all of it, and fucking _meant_ it, and then you looked at me like you were about to foam at the mouth and leap through the fucking window. Like a werewolf or some shit."

"Shut _up_ and touch your dick, fuckweed, before I actually _do_ start foaming at the mouth."

Richie blushed deeper and still didn't move. "Well what do you want me to do, just do it? While you sit here, literally two inches from my dick, with your fucking _face_ , and--" He looked at Eddie again, his pupils as wide as fucking golf balls. Eddie smiled as Richie looked him up and down. "Shit, yeah, okay." His hands shaking, he wrapped his hand back around his cock and gasped at the contact, twisting his wrist as he worked his hand up, shuddering like it was almost too much, but he couldn't stand to stop. 

Eddie kissed his knee. "You're too easy to convince. You'd make a terrible lawyer."

All the air punched out of Richie when Eddie traced the line where Richie's thigh met his hip. Eddie couldn't believe he was the only person who would see Richie like this, with nothing but the physical barrier of his own skin to keep them from melding into one another, as he bit his bottom lip raw until Eddie could see blood. Eddie kissed along his inner thighs, sucking a hickey just above the side of his knee, where his embarrassingly short jean shorts could never cover.

"What were you thinking about before I came home?" Eddie asked, pulling Richie's legs out so they lay flat, his knees draped on either side of Eddie's hips. His legs had gotten more muscle too, sturdier, like they were coming into their own just as Richie was. Eddie swallowed hard at the thought. "You said my name."

"Always think of you when I jack off," Richie breathed, thumbing over the head of his cock and using the fluid there to ease his way. "Was thinking about how we're _totally_ fucking in every room of this house when they all go back to Hicksville, Maine. Not, like, the bedrooms, because that's gross, but I _will_ be sucking your dick on the couch, don't think I won't be. I have it all planned out."

Eddie leaned down to suck a mark into Richie's hip, hovering above anywhere Richie would want him to touch. "Is that _all_ you were thinking about, or just a part of it?"

"Why do you need to _know?_ Can a man have his surprise for seducing his husband in _peace?_ " He choked when Eddie blew on his dick, smiling at the way his vein jumped and he slowed down, thrusting his hips into his own hand. Eddie wondered if that's what Richie looked like when he fucked him, his hips moving on their own just to chase the feeling. "I'm gonna, literally, paint the fucking walls of this place--"

"Disgusting."

Richie choked as he sped up again, unable to help himself as he neared his own orgasm. "I'm _fucking_ serious--ha, ha, fucking--like, against the front door, kitchen counter, I'll fucking lean you against the crisper shelf in the fridge. Bend you over the desk in the study. I'm gonna fuck you with the door o-open, just cause I can." He started to grow restless, bucking up into his hand as he continued rambling. "Have I ever told you that I want to fuck you with your socks on? Like, not in practice, not in reality, but the thought of you being so fucking needy and not even wanting to fully undress yourself before you fuck yourself on my cock is so f _ucking_ \--"

"That's hideous," Eddie said, "and I'll never do it, but to each their own. I did have a dream once…" He hovered over Richie and licked his pulse point, the salt from his skin coating Eddie's tongue. "That you fucked me while I was asleep. I imagine I said yes to it, because...obvious reasons--"

"Of course."

"You wouldn't even kiss me in a room with other people without my permission--"

"I was _worried_ \--"

Eddie smiled against his collarbone. "And you, basically, I don't even know if you prepped me, or anything, but you fucked me, and I woke up with you gripping my hips so tightly it hurt, and you were fucking me like it wasn't even _about_ me, like you were just using me to jack off with--"

"Eddie, _fuck_ \--"

"And I fucking _loved_ it," Eddie admitted, red to his roots that he was even saying any of this, but so fucking turned on his whole body wanted to collapse. "I loved that you were, _are_ , strong enough to just do that to me, even if you don't necessarily look it--"

"Hey!"

Eddie just ignored him. "God, you could fucking manhandle me, no matter what I was doing, and even if I _was_ doing something and wasn't particularly thinking about you fucking me, I would fucking let you, just put me wherever you wanted and use me, I--"

" _ **F**_ ** _uck!_** " Richie cursed, moaning way too fucking loudly as he came over his hand and stomach, chest heaving with his head thrown back. Like a fucking painting, complex in his beauty but romantic in his eroticism.

"Holy shit," Eddie breathed, as Richie pulled his hand away from his cock, sneaking down his body to lick the come from his stomach. 

Richie watched with rapt fascination, breathing raggedly when Eddie made eye contact. "Oh my god, dude."

Eddie shh'd him and continued, until his stomach was entirely clean. He hummed at his work before Richie grabbed him and threw him on their bed, tearing Eddie's boxers down so quickly he was surprised they didn't rip. Eddie sobbed at the feeling of Richie's hands hard on his hips, the intoxicating friction of Richie dragging his body up to kiss him. Eddie could barely fucking grasp the concept of reality by that point, he'd been so hard for so long, licking into Richie's mouth, which was really fucking difficult once Richie wrapped a hand around him, basically putting all of his extra concentration back into his dick and into Richie and his cologne and his sweat and his stupid fucking face. 

_Can_ I suck your dick right now?" He asked, voice level with his seriousness. "I think I might die if I don't."

"I think I might kill you if you don't," Eddie laughed, biting both of his lips in an attempt to stay quiet. Nobody banged on their door yet, they were probably in the clear. "R-Ri _chie!_ "

Richie said nothing as he took all of Eddie's cock in his mouth at once. He didn't have the twenty foot-long dick that Richie did, but he wasn't working with _nothing_ , and when Richie ever _practiced_ deepthroating--the image of him being so desperate to do it that he'd practice at all, is kind of telling Eddie how long he's going to last-- and that wasn't fucking long. His hips stuttered forward as Richie pulled back, trying to chase the wet warmth of Richie's mouth, but Richie wouldn't let him. He pushed Eddie's hips back into the mattress so he couldn't move them, circling his tongue over the head of Eddie's cock and _sucking_.

"Oh my _god_ ," Eddie gasped, crying out when Richie did it again, using his hand to work what he couldn't reach, thumbing Eddie's frenulum until he moaned out loud and came in Richie's mouth, whining pitifully at the sight. He barely even registered the insistent banging on the wall behind them. It could have been his own heart in his fucking ears for all he knew. "Fucking _shit_."

Richie pulled away once Eddie started to literally crawl out of his own skin, pulling himself back up to kiss him again, letting them taste each other on one another's tongues. It was fucking dizzying, the feeling of sharing the same space with Richie like this, even if their sheets were all sweaty and he would never be able to look Stan in the eyes again for as long as he lived. 

"Oh, hey," Richie exhaled into Eddie's mouth. "How was work?"

\---

The rest of the day melted into gloomy boredom, as Ben and Stan's plans to go to the beach for sunset and look for those little crabs that scuttle under the sand that Eddie _hated_ but went for the _experience_ , or whatever meant getting to be a dick on a beach with his best friends and try and drown Richie in the ocean without going in it himself, went to shit with the storm that rolled in, just as Eddie found it in himself to leave their bedroom and face their friends. Mike and Stan booed them when they both came out, but Eddie didn't mind, still on the post-coital high where all he wanted was water and to hug someone. He planned on that being Richie, but everyone was already out in the living room, and he loved everyone, so he could adapt. 

Eddie curled into Stan, having showered after chugging a whole bottle of water, already thirsty from forgetting his wallet at home and not being able to buy a water at work like usual, and then fucking parched from Richie sucking all of the water out of his body through his dick. Stan didn't seem to mind Eddie's still damp hair, or, at least, he wasn't waking up about it. Eddie was going to regret not combing his hair out tomorrow when he woke up looking like a baby chick and Richie cooed at him like he was one, but for now, with his head leaning against Stan's equally fluffy pile of curls on top of his head, he was content. The thick fabric of Stan's grandpa sweater scratched at his arms, wrapping Eddie in a lavender-and-vanilla-dryer-sheet scented fever dream, lulling him into an almost sleep. He didn't want to sleep, he had work again the next day and wanted to sleep later that night, but Ben was coming back any minute with hot chocolate, a leftover habit of drinking it during storms that he shared with his parents and was showing them as a part of his family, and once he had Eddie sandwiched in the middle, it was beyond his control. 

Mike was on one far end of the couch, his legs stretched out longways to leave just enough room for Ben to sit between his fuzzy-socked feet and Eddie and Stan's jumbled hug, silently reading a book Eddie had never heard of. He didn't think it was for their book club, Richie said they were reading something else, but it had a dark blue cover with bright red letters Eddie didn't read. It was probably something thriller-esque, something him and Bill would geek over to the point where Eddie was surprised they didn't explode. He once walked into the living room at four in the morning on a random night and found them outlining a book Bill had never mentioned again, having literal nonsensical arguments over alibis and motives and how they kill the detective but he's not really dead, and Eddie decided that he didn't need to know about all of that. For his own safety. 

The Bill in question was perched on their wicker scoop chairs, furiously trying to do _something_ on his Gameboy, hair flopped in his face for lack of pushing it elsewhere, his lips pursed in concentration. He still had on his entire work uniform, like an alarm had gone off the second he got home, and he _had_ to play whatever he was so intent on. 

Richie and Beverly were laying on the floor, ignoring their coffee table, which had various candles on it that Mike lit and the current music collection they were dealing with, a basket of various cassettes and CD's all tossed in there that they'd been listening to more recently than the ones in the cabinet, tucked in corner where the kitchen doorway dropped a ledge to where the hallway started. They were turned towards each other, Richie writing something in the notebook Eddie got him for Christmas, which he was squeezing in the margins of since he'd practically run out of pages. Eddie wasn't worried, though, their anniversary was two days away, and in addition to the over the top gay plan Eddie had, there was another notebook stashed away in Eddie's school bag, where Richie wouldn't even think to look. Beverly was reading a book and trying to steal looks at what Richie was writing, which, if it had anything to do with earlier, Eddie would be stealing the remaining years of his life. Regardless, every time she did so, Richie would try and scribble on the page she was reading, and they would fight for a minute until Bill would shush them and demand silence for his laser focus. 

Richie's hair was pulled back at the top, leaving the back loose to drop and graze his shoulders. Beverly was almost the same, but she had tried to put it all up, and the shorter pieces were all falling out. Eddie smiled blearily at them, half asleep himself, knowing they weren't even looking at him back, but not caring. He could hear Ben stirring the hot chocolate in the kitchen, the spoon clinking against the sides as he struggled to crush the remainders of the Hershey kisses he put in the bottom of all of their mugs. 

In all honesty, he would have preferred this over the beach any day, all doing their own things in the shared space they chose to be in together. The large woven blanket wrapped around Stan and him sinking him deeper into bliss. 

"I come forth bearing gifts," Ben mumbled, focused on carrying all seven mugs into the living room on a tray, unnecessarily, the wobbling of all the ceramic nudging against each other endearing on its own. 

Bill looked over at him and the deflated, telling notes of a video game death rang through the otherwise silent room, but he barely seemed to mind. Beverly scoffed at him, incredulous that Ben hadn't gotten the hush she did when she hit Richie on the head with her book (paperback, thank god), but letting it go when she grabbed hers, standing up to kiss them both. Ben smiled in his oven mitts and Bill buried his hand in her bundle of hair, while Richie tried to grab his mug without moving and almost knocked over everyone else's. 

Eddie poked Stan's cheek, which was surprisingly smooth considering he was eighteen with a stress problem, until his eyes fluttered open. "Hot chocolate."

Whatever leftover sleepiness Stan was still struggling to swim through, he seemed to surface in record time, hauling his body out of his and Eddie's cocoon to grab both mugs. He handed one to Eddie before curling back towards him, like they were in a freezing cold tundra and had only each other to steal warmth from. Eddie didn't mind, sipping from his steaming mug, the Elixir of Immortality. 

"What are you reading?" Ben asked, crouching over Beverly to squint at her pages. Eddie didn't even bother trying to see them, just tugged another blanket on top of himself so he could share it with Ben, already knowing their current one wouldn't all three of them, but still liked the feeling of huddling together with people under a shared cover. He was...a sardine...mentality wise. 

" _T_ _he Five Love Languages_ ," Beverly recited in an astute voice, fixing an imaginary tie around her neck. "It's literally just the book by the dude who says that there's five ways people express love: words of affirmation, quality time, giving gifts--"

"Acts of service, physical touch," Stan finished, nodding. "You stole that from the bookshelf in our room."

"And? It's interesting." She rolled onto her back so she was facing Ben, sticking her legs straight up to rest on his. "I think your love language is words, but that's just a guess."

Ben smiled in the gentle reserved way he saved for all of his friends, but especially for Beverly and Bill. "Okay, Miss Embers. What's yours?"

"Uh, judging by all the braided bracelets I make you all the time, I think gifts."

"About that--" Bill joined Bev on the floor, shoving his own head between the angled space Richie and her made, looking up at her so high that Eddie was surprised his eyes didn't roll out onto the floor. "I think you should sell them. Like, post an ad or something. This lady at work says how her granddaughter, who's thirty, so, like, not a kid, makes a little extra money in addition to her job--"

"Think of all the _weed_ , Bev," Richie sighed, leaning his forehead against Bill's. "And you can get all the fucking bomb ass pencils in the world and shit. Your own love languages book." He leaned back on his head so he could see Eddie, his eyebrows, while upside down from Eddie's point of view, furrowed. "What's my love language?"

Eddie blinked sleep out of his eyes to see him clearly. "What were they again?"

"Words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, acts of service, physical touch," Stan listed. "And for the love of fucking god do not fucking say touch, I will kick your ass."

Richie gawked at him. "What if it was? What would you do?"

"Kick your ass!" He repeated. "You wouldn't mean it for, like, in the way the guy means it." He stared at Richie's petulant glare. "Prove me wrong."

Eddie interrupted before they could have the argument: "I don't know if you...really...fit neatly into any of those categories. I want to say words, because you literally...stand up for me no matter what...and all of your sets you talk about, literally, how much you love me. Which is super gay, by the way. You either get super specific gifts that make my fucking head explode or, like, everything I need and, like, bring me...peace, while also freaking me the fuck out with your stupid shit. I value time with you and your touch, and you do too, but I don't know if that's...like...like, I could value French as a language, doesn't mean I'm fluent. I can value certain aspects of you, it doesn't make them your _love_ _language_."

Richie smiled dopily at him. "You don't value French at all."

"'Cause it sucks. I think acts of service maybe? You ironed my clothes the other day, and even did my socks even though you think it's dumb--I didn't even cry about it, but I wanted to." His faced burned at everyone's eyes on him. "You love me in too many ways, I don't think there's one specifically."

"I should love you better," Richie whispered, and whether it was supposed to be a joke or not, Eddie couldn't tell, but nobody was taking the chance. Mike closed his book and set it down, ready to literally pull Richie from the floor into the tightest hug of his life.

Bill turned to him and shoved his shoulder, using the time Richie took to recover to sit on his stomach and lightly flick him in the face. 

"You! Idiot!" Bill argued at him, easily getting past Richie's _terrible_ attempt at dodging him. Eddie slid out from their small nest to crawl to Richie and hover over him upside down. 

"Richard, dearest?"

"Yes, Edward, my love?"

Eddie kissed his forehead. "Don't be dumb."

To his sheer relief, because making out with Richie on their living room floor isn't the best idea, Richie just smiled, satisfied with the answer he gave. How could there be any other answer? He looked Eddie dead in the eyes on Christmas fucking day and told him that he got beat by his father because he was standing up for the two of them. He _ironed_ Eddie's _socks_. He brought Eddie out of his own head and made sure he never slipped too far to be out of reach, and was building a whole stand up career where a major component was his love for Eddie and how that affected his entire life. He killed a fucking demon for him. How could there be any better love than this? 

Richie leaned up and kissed his nose. "Okay." He swung Bill's wrists, which he was grabbed to stop getting flicked in the face, but then never let go of, back and forth. "Your love language is...acts, I think. Since _otherworldly_ ass is not a language." 

Stan drew in a sharp ass breath. 

"What's your l _ooooove_ language, Stan?" Ben asked, probably to diffuse the tension and allow Richie to live another day. 

"Insults and physical touch," Beverly concluded, beaming when Stan flipped her off. "See?"

Richie angled his head so far it looked painful. "And Mike."

"Quality time. Or, that's what Stan says anyway."

Stan stood and moved so he could sit between Mike's legs. "I'm the most qualified person to know."

"Hey!" Eddie called. "Who said you could sit with Mike? I was leeching warmth from you!"

"Too bad," Stan muttered, already falling asleep against Mike, who had gone back to reading his book, set gently on Stan's chest. 

"Fuck all of you." Eddie stood up and curled into his corner seat. "You all have no love in your heart, let alone a _language_." 

Richie laughed and stood. "You're so over dramatic." He took Stan's spot on the couch, leaning his chin on Eddie's shoulder as Ben came over and actually did what he was _supposed_ to have done minutes ago, sitting on Eddie's other side and throwing a blanket over the three of them, even if it didn't really fit over all three of them. "Happy now?"

Eddie curled into the warmth of them again and listened to the rain fall outside. "Yes."

\---

The storm let up by the next day, and it had melted into the normal California heat, which Eddie was happy to avoid in their air conditioned apartment, if it weren't for the fact that Richie was at lunch with his mom right now, and Eddie was actively aware of every passing second due to him having to force himself not to detonate in the middle of the living room. There was no clock ticking in the room, but it fucking felt like it, not knowing every detail of whatever conversation they might be having ping-ponged around in his brain like one. 

_Tick_ \--Richie's mom had waited for almost five months to call him after Christmas. What were all her thoughts every second of every day from when Richie left that night until she called their dorm building?-- _Tock--_ Richie and Eddie spent months wondering if his mom was just a complacent partner in Richie's father's wrath, or wanting to fight against it but physically not being able to, because while Richie and Went shared the same broadness, Went was all...brawny, and Richie was bony, like his mom.-- _Tick_ \--And, would Richie be wary of her at first, would this lunch be stiff glances and awkward conversation as they struggled not to pick apart every aspect of the last time they saw each other in Derry. Richie jumped into things wholeheartedly, without hesitance or foresight, usually, but this was his _mom_ coming to him after his father had made it clear that Richie was no longer considered their son, and that he would hurt him, maybe _kill_ him, if he ever interfered with their lives again. Would that make him more or less cautious? Would wanting his mom back let him forget the part she played? Would it let him forgive her? Eddie was about to explode. 

They brainstormed questions to ask her the night before, but Richie didn't write them down, which meant he'd forgotten all of them and he would come back looking guilty that he'd forgotten them like they were the nuclear bomb codes. It wasn't even really a brainstorm session, they just sat on the floor eating Chips Ahoy (it was easier to vacuum up crumbs on a floor than out of mattress creases) while Richie rambled and Eddie interrupted, until Richie started freaking out, because _this_ was _his_ **_mom_ ** and he was fucking fragile, and Eddie was his husband and therefore the one who had to suggest they stop talking about it and do literally anything else so they didn't panic and then die there. Eddie would do it again if he had to, but he was hoping this lunch gave Richie all the answers he wanted and they could live in happily domestic bliss, while Richie's mom comes over on the weekends and, like, cooks dinner like she used to on Saturday afternoons, or something. 

Eddie jumped as the door burst open and Richie came in, his bag slung across his body in a way that would give him scoliosis by the end of the summer. 

"I'm ho- _ome!_ " Richie called, barely getting through the door before Eddie was crashing into him and wrapping his arms tight around his waist. "Woah!"

"How did it go?" He asked, staring Richie in the eye to try and see if he had been crying or something and trying to save face. 

Richie's whole face lit up as he leaned away from Eddie to pull a VHS tape out of his bag. A bunch of other shit fell on the floor when he did: pens, pencils, a weird little figurine that bent at the limbs, a bead necklace?--but Eddie ignored it. 

"Did you know there are gay comedians?" He was practically bouncing out of his skin, picking up all of the shit on the floor and shoving it back into his bag so he could keep talking. 

Eddie watched him bend the figurine so it was sitting criss-cross-applesauce and crossed its arms. "I assumed? You can only be so funny when you're straight, and--"

"No, like, they did a special! A bunch of homos got together and--"

" _Homos_ \--"

"--Did a special, like that wasn't the tightest shit in the fucking world! My mom gave this to me! You know the huge box in our bathroom she keeps tampons in and shit?"

Eddie clenched his teeth so hard they could've broken. "The one that, when we were, like, eight, you told me was a first aid kit, and then watched me almost pass out trying to make sense of? _That_ box?" He shuddered at the image of him rifling through a box of tampons, while Richie tried to convince him they were bandaids, and Eddie couldn't, for the life of him, actually figure out how. 

Richie kissed his head, his smile almost splitting his face in two. "Yes, that one. _Well_ , she said she bought this months ago, and then hid it in there so my dad wouldn't find it, and that she thought I probably knew about it-- _which,_ I fucking **didn't** , and it came out in October; I was busy, like, buying weed for Beverly to make my Halloween costume--"

"Don't get me started on that fucking dress."

"--To even know this existed! But she gave it to me and we _have_ to watch it. Like, I'll divorce you if you don't watch it with me, but also if you don't like it, I will divorce _myself_ from this state of being and go directly to hell. First class trip."

"Shut up," Eddie laughed, shoving Richie in the shoulder before pulling him in to kiss him. "So it went well, then? Is that what you're telling me?"

Richie sighed happily. "It was fucking _awesome_ . My mom told me more about being with my dad after everything, and stuff, and how much she loved me. _Then_ we started getting into _her_ past, and she started asking me if I smoked weed in shit, which I said _no_ to, but then said how she always wanted to get into the hippie movement, and then we went on an anti-Nixon spiel, and I got to flex my 1960's class knowledge on her--"

"Terrible."

"And then we talked about the government and usually that's, like, not something you want to talk about with your parents, but then she was super cool about it and said how my dad sucks, and I'm--I love my mom. Like, coolest lady I ever met. Sorry to Beverly."

Eddie kissed him again, all his worry melted away and was replaced by Richie's infectious happiness. "I'm telling her you said that."

"Oh, _Eddie_ , to be a widower so young! To lose your husband to _murder_ , by your **best friend**." He fell into Eddie's arms and went limp, hand flopped dramatically over his forehead. "The horror!" 

He felt like the sun had swallowed him whole. "You're the fucking worst!"

\---

Richie fell asleep curled up in the armchair, which he pulled from the study into the living room so they could all watch the comedy special all huddled in front of their TV. He barely even laughed the entire time, sitting there in awe, and the careful nervousness of someone begging for something they'd hoped for so long to be perfect, or...for it to be seen as perfect, so someone wouldn't catch on a flaw and discount the entire thing altogether. Eddie sat on his lap against his better judgement, fearing for his life that Richie would vomit on him, or try not to, but not be able to say that he needed Eddie to move, and then do it anyway. 

He barely even watched it the entire time, instead focused intently on how _Eddie_ watched it, occasionally (frequently) staring at the others to make sure they weren't bored. He only actually laughed when they did, and Eddie wanted to roll his eyes and tell him to relax, but he knew that would only worry Richie out more, having to focus on the show, the reactions of all six of his friends, freaking out, and also acting like he wasn't freaking out for Eddies sake. His legs were already bouncing so fast it was giving Eddie a concussion, he wasn't adding to his stress and getting bounced through the ceiling into the other duplex above them. He was pretty sure that would fuck their security deposit before they'd even done anything to really lose it. 

It _was_ good, though, Eddie admitted freely, even if most of his laughter came when Richie actually let him _self_ laugh, and it set off a chain reaction where they basically were just laughing at each other. Ben loved it, went into a whole rant when the credits rolled about how cool it was and how much he wanted to watch it again sometime, maybe when they all got back from Derry, which Eddie was _sure_ Richie cried about. 

They all woke up in the living room the next morning, Eddie not even remembering when he'd left the armchair to go on the couch, but not minding once he stood up and his back only felt marginally fucked. The sun hadn't even risen yet, but all of the alarm clocks in their room were blaring. He sat up and wiped the sleep out of his eyes, wondering with a faint sense of horror what his hair must have looked like having slept smushed against the right angle of the couch crease.

"What time is it?" Bill asked, his voice muddled with sleep and his hair in every direction on one side. Him, Beverly, and Ben had fallen asleep, sitting up, on the floor, with Ben in the middle of them so Bev and Bill could exploit him for his broad shoulders and use them as pillows. 

"Two," Stan answered, trudging off to the kitchen. Eddie sighed in relief when he heard him scooping coffee. "Our flight is at six, though, and I didn't buy the plane ticket just to miss our flight, so let's _go!_ "

Realistically, Eddie knew saying goodbye to his friends before they left for Derry wasn't that big of a deal. He knew they would be back in two weeks, and that he and Richie would be fine home alone, and would probably desecrate every room in the house that wasn't a bedroom, but still, watching the five of them disappear into their departure gates felt upsetting in a way Eddie wasn't prepared for. They just moved in together! And now five of them were going to fuck off to hell on earth to _what_ , visit their families? Assholes. 

Eddie smiled when Richie stood, even when his back cracked like a series of fireworks and he poked himself in the nose trying to push up the glasses he wasn't wearing. 

"We're taking the truck, right?" Richie muttered, squinting and fumbling across the small end table to find his glasses where Eddie put them. 

Beverly snorted, standing to go to her room. "If it turns on."

"Fuck you, Marsh." He cracked his back a few more times, for flair and to make Eddie gag, before walking over to Eddie and kissing him on the forehead. "Happy anniversary, by the way."

And _that_ was a whole other wave of feelings entirely.

\---

Richie had to go to work after dropping everyone off at the airport, leaving Eddie alone in the apartment for _approximately_ eight hours. Eight hours he would spend trying to perfect his entirely over the top, unnecessary anniversary...present?...more of a party...for Richie, the love of his life, who would make fun of Eddie for this for, literally, the rest of their fucking life. 

He was terrified that Richie would hate it, or say and act like he loved it but then laugh at him on the phone with Beverly tomorrow, and Eddie would overhear him when he was getting ready for work and he would just have to pack all of his bags and flee the country, never to be seen again. He didn't care if it wasn't logical, that he knew he could buy Richie a fucking spoon and Richie would cry and use it every day of his life, it was about the _principle_ of it. He had to worry about it and consider cancelling the whole thing in order to be unfortunately right, or pleasantly wrong. 

The feeling of a rented tux on his shoulders isn't one Eddie particularly craved in the year it had been since he wore one, but he didn't altogether mind it when it came to going all out for dramatic effect. He was just fixing his hair in their bedroom mirror when the front door opened. 

"Close your eyes!" Eddie yelled, running out the room to try and prevent Richie from seeing it, but it was too late. 

Richie stared at the living room with wide eyes, the Chinese food Eddie had him pick up dangling from his fingers. The Christmas lights Eddie strung up around the room glimmered in Richie's glasses, as he dropped the bag not holding their food on the ground. Eddie could barely breathe. 

"You...You--"

He meant to say _anything_ , literally anything, about how he wanted to talk to Richie outside before he came in the house, and give him the disclaimer that there was an entire scene inside, give any warning that he might get emotionally assassinated once going in, and how Richie was supposed to _call_ him when he was leaving work so that Eddie could actually watch for when he came home, and do all of that.

"You're wearing the shirt I got you for your birthday," is what came out instead. Eddie wanted to throw himself into the garbage disposal. 

"And I'm under dressed as fuck, apparently." Richie breathed, leaning down and picking up the bag he dropped only to set it and the bag down on a wicker chair. "You remade _prom_."

"Not exactly," Eddie mumbled, his face heating up at Richie's intent fascination with it, like he would just look at Eddie's entire reconstruction of their prom and shrug it off. "The fairy tale theme was disgusting, so I put that little foam castle on the wall and let the rest speak for itself."

He'd hung so many lights he could barely see Richie's eyes through their reflection in his glasses, but Eddie could see the tears dripping down his face, staring in disbelief before kicking through the ocean of technicolor balloons Eddie blew up and spread around on the floor. He grabbed Eddie by the front of his shirt and hauled him in, crashing their lips together so hard their teeth clicked together. Richie smelled like a bar and his aftershave, which was something Eddie had stopped minding, and his mouth tasted like popcorn. His hands were insistent and firm on the back of Eddie's neck, curling his fingers in Eddie's hair as Eddie held his waist, his chest overflowing with emotions while Richie pulled off his own jacket.

"There's--" Eddie began, but then cut himself off to kiss Richie again. "We should eat."

Richie laughed against his mouth. "...You decorated our first apartment to look like the place where I got to tell you I loved you for the first time, and you're focused on _food_."

"Nothing I say is coming _out_ right," Eddie complained, balling his fists in Richie's shirt. "I put clothes out for you, but you don't have to wear them. I thought you would want to change out of your uniform shirt, but you--"

"I put this on on the way home so I would smell _less_ like a brewery, because you didn't tell me this was a _black tie event_ \--"

"Do you not know how surprises work, fuckweed? You barely know how to count to ten, why do you _now_ need to know everything?" He let Richie walk him backwards to their room, not even minding if their anniversary didn't focus on the prom and, instead, got fucked within an inch of his life As long as he was with Richie, he was eager to do whatever the night led them to. 

"I'll change, then we can eat." His glasses pressed against Eddie's eyebrows as he leaned their foreheads together. "Even if you didn't rent my _actual_ prom tux, because you're a coward."

"Fuck you!" Eddie laughed, shoving Richie onto their bed. "It's _our_ anniversary, meaning half mine. I'm not subjecting my eyes to that again."

Richie chuckled under his breath as he pulled 'World's Best Grandpa' over his head and threw it on the bed. Eddie sighed, kissing Richie's shoulder blade before leaving the room, unwilling to let all their fucking food get cold after he spent _all_ day rearranging furniture and blowing up so many balloons he felt like he should have abs now. 

"Do you want me to do my hair?" Richie asked, walking into the kitchen while he fixed his tie. His hair looked like it always did, ruffled and messy on his head, but it was better than the ultra-slicked down prom look he went with last year, made Richie look more like himself than a pipecleaner Ken doll. He put on dress shoes, and his socks matched for once. His sleeves rolled up to the elbows. 

"We can never get married," Eddie whispered, and Richie's face fell. "This is enough to make me lose brain function. You in an actual, literal, tuxedo. Like, a _black_ one, not the baby blue bullshit of 1993, I'd...we'd never make it to the ceremony."

Richie's frown melted into a beaming smile. " _E_ __d_ ward _, I never took you for a honeymoon first kind of man."

Eddie handed him an empty plate, pulling him in by the tie to kiss him. "Yes, the fuck, you did."

\---

"I can't believe you fucking remade prom," Richie said, spinning Eddie underneath his arm. 

Their food (and wine, courtesy of Richie's fake ID and the corner store two blocks down from their house) had been cleared off of the coffee table so that Eddie could replace it with Beverly's boombox, playing the first song they ever danced to on repeat. Eddie didn't have the equipment or the time to make a whole mixtape of songs relevant to him and Richie, and so he settled for this, one song for the whole night, that he would probably hate ever listening to again. He knew the rest of the songs on the album, but they weren't important. All that really mattered to Eddie in that moment was him and Richie, whether they had music on or not. 

Eddie kissed him when he got close enough, curling his hands in Richie's hair. "We literally moved cross-country, started college, _finished_ a year of college...got jobs...I kissed someone for the first time, lost my virginity--"

"I was there for that one," Richie agreed. 

"I _remember_ , but my point was...a lot has changed since then. I wanted a reminder that, before we start capitalizing on our epic romance, we were just two obnoxious assholes at prom." He stared down at the floor to avoid Richie's gaze, fearing they'd make eye contact and then he'd lose all of his confidence. "I've loved you for...forever, _basically_ , and we've been through some shit--"

"You don't say," Richie whispered distractedly, like he wasn't conscious of it. Not so much interrupting as he was adding. 

"But we always got through it, and I wanted to do something _nice!_ To...thank you? For the best year of my life. The prom idea kind of...came to me in a prophecy-ish sequence in the middle of work while a woman talked to me about dresses."

Richie snorted. "I love it, and you. Thank you. This is way cooler than my thing."

"You have a thing?" Eddie frowned as Richie pulled away from him, rummaging through the grocery bag he brought home with him. Eddie rolled his eyes when Richie came back over and began setting the contents of the bag on the table: the salsa Eddie liked that Richie hated, lube, _puffy_ cheese curls, and a velvet...box. 

Before Eddie could even collect his _thoughts_ , let alone say anything, Richie popped it open to show him a solid gold band. It was simple but meant so much to him that he could have killed Richie right there. 

"It's not really a big thing...I just...since we're out in California, and _out_ in California, I wanted to get you a ring that...you can walk down the street with and _say_...this is from my boyfriend, or fiance, or husband, whatever." He kissed Eddie's hand once he took it. "You have three whole ass rings from me now--"

"But this one _totally_ rules them all," Eddie said.

"Fuck off, you're not getting another one. Or, well, when we actually get married, you can have another one, but until then...you'll have to settle."

"Yeah, totally, settle for three rings from my best friend who--we're in love, that I get to be with for the rest of my life, who spends every day just telling stupid fucking jokes to make me laugh and...has a smile that makes me angry with how much I love you and your stupid fucking hot face." He climbed into Richie's lap while he spoke, holding Richie's face in his hands. "God forbid I fucking settle for the best person I've ever known."

Richie looked fucking _euphoric_ , humming when Eddie leaned down and kissed him. "Sucks to be you."

Eddie screamed when Richie fell back to lay flat on the floor, holding Eddie where he was so he wouldn't fall off of him. Richie stopped Eddie from saying anything, kissing him deeply until Eddie practically threw all fine motor skills out the window, balling up Richie's shirt in his hands and pressing his lips more insistently against Richie's

He thought about himself, then, a kid in the middle of a town that wanted to kill him, in a house that was doing the same, but under the pretense of helping him, curing him of something that didn't need to be cleared out. He'd been going through medications and pseudo-diagnoses, the loss of his father, long division, and the only constant he ever had were his three friends and the guarantee that, no matter what, they were all going to have to fight to be themselves no matter who they actually were. 

He thought about him and Richie, thirteen year old assholes with all the confidence of people who had no survival instinct, never starting fights with their bullies, but not willing to lie down and die, either, and usually paying the price for it. Eddie was scared of everything he couldn't fight, but he'd be fucking damned if he didn't fight what he could. He would scream at his school bullies until he was blue in the face and black and blue in the eyes, he helped kill Pennywise the second he knew it was possible, but he couldn't face what he couldn't fight. 

Loving Richie had been something he couldn't fight. 

All the mortifying consequences that came as a result of falling in love with your best friend, he'd dealt with them. He used to fall asleep at night, picturing girls in their class and hoping he would fall in love with them, or like them, because admitting to being in love with someone other than a girl, and the acknowledgment that that someone was Richie, made Eddie's hands shake and his breathing push quickly through his body. He used to equally bask in and flinch at every touch, before he even knew why, dealt with it by climbing in Richie's space and worming his way into the center of Richie's attention, hiding his feelings in plain sight, not even considering what it might be doing to Richie, that Richie might be feeling the same things as him, and Eddie always trying to be next to him or near him, was confusing. 

It was like climbing a mountain without ever knowing if there would be a peak, and then forcing it to be there when he saw the chance. He could have gone his whole life climbing, never telling Richie how he felt and loving him despite that, but he didn't. He'd forced himself to the top of a mountain, a year ago exactly, at the first prom Eddie had ever been to and the last he'd ever attend, and told Richie how much he fucking loved him, and how much he always would. 

Remaking their prom had been Eddie's reminder at just how far they'd gone to get where they were now, and he wouldn't trade it for the world. He would get his ass kicked, fight Pennywise, and his fucking mother, a million times over, if only he could still have this when it was over. 

He laughed against Richie's mouth and kissed him. Again, and again, and again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from the literal staple song of this series-- I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston !! 
> 
> talk to me on tumblr @sunflowersocialist !! I hope you enjoyed this!!

**Author's Note:**

> hey y'all !! I already posted this in a different format, but i thought this one would make more sense and be more palatable to people since it will be broken up over more chapters, sorry to everyone who was reading but you will get regular updates of this fic MWF or tues/thurs alternating and i hope you enjoy!! 
> 
> chapter title from Arcade by That Kid 
> 
> tumblr: sunflowersocialist


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